


Life in the Flicker

by wanderingeyre



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beta Derek Hale, Canon-typical peril, Druid Stiles Stilinski, Fluff and Angst, Full Shift Werewolves, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mates, Mates Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Monster of the Week, Mutual Pining, POV Derek Hale, POV Multiple, POV Stiles Stilinski, Pack Feels, Pining, Rebuilt Hale House, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingeyre/pseuds/wanderingeyre
Summary: The wolf’s fur is softer than even Stiles could have imagined, like clouds and baby bunnies, and Stiles cards his fingers through the ruff at the wolf’s neck. The wolf whines and leans into the caress and Stiles can feel his eyes fill. He stands there, crying with the wolf leaning into his legs and his hand fisted in the wolf’s fur.God, what a night.Stiles unlocks the door. “I hope you’re housebroken.”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 72
Kudos: 823





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **This is a completed work.** New posts will go up every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, on the following schedule:  
> 8/30  
> 9/1  
> 9/3  
> 9/6  
> 9/8  
> 9/10  
> 9/13.
> 
> _“All of life is in that brief flicker of light, and hopefully it will last as long as the old earth keeps rolling. But we should remember that from the earth's perspective, it was dark only yesterday.” ― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness._

**Chapter 1**

When Stiles comes home from the fight with the Alphas, there’s a large—like put a saddle on it ginormous—black wolf on his porch, waiting. Stiles is bone weary and his heart aches over their losses. Frankly, there's little that surprises him anymore, so he stops before unlocking the door and puts a hand on the wolf’s head. Stiles knows the wolf is Derek, even though Derek has never admitted to this particular ability, and Stiles also knows that they both need whatever comfort they can get after this shitty victory. The wolf’s fur is softer than even Stiles could have imagined, like clouds and baby bunnies, and Stiles cards his fingers through the ruff at the wolf’s neck. The wolf whines and leans into the caress and Stiles can feel his eyes fill. He stands there, crying with the wolf leaning into his legs and his hand fisted in the wolf’s fur. 

_ God, what a night.  _ Stiles unlocks the door. “I hope you’re housebroken.”

The wolf nips at Stiles’s leg as he walks into the house and Stiles chuckles at his own joke, glad it’s still amusing as hell to poke fun at Derek, even in this form. Stiles stumbles up the stairs, his feet and heart heavy with everything that’s happened. The clatter of his keys and wallet as he drops them on his desk rings through the empty house. His dad is still out dealing with the aftermath of the mess from the Alphas.

“So,” Stiles draws out the word and grabs some pajama pants from a drawer, then hesitates and grabs a shirt. The wolf is sitting in the middle of his room, watching him. “I’m gonna take a shower. Make yourself at home.”

Stiles washes methodically, trying not to think too much about Derek, in any form, in his room. Derek is in his room often enough that Stiles is used to the mental gymnastics it takes to try to push aside thoughts of  _ Derek _ and  _ bed _ and  _ in my room _ . But it’s only recently that Stiles has come to the conclusion, after too many times jerking off to thoughts of Derek in exactly that position with no clothes on, that Stiles might have lustful inclinations, maybe actual feelings for the broody alpha. Tonight though, he is too fucking tired and doesn’t have the extra brain space to question why Derek is here in wolf form.

When Stiles walks back into his room, the glow of the lamp is the only light and Derek, still a wolf, is curled up on one side of Stiles’s bed. Stiles flops down on the other side of bed, throwing his arm around the wolf, and wraps his body around Derek.

Before he falls asleep, Stiles murmurs, “I’m glad neither of us is alone tonight.”

\---

Derek doesn’t say anything about sleeping with Stiles in his wolf form and Stiles doesn’t bring it up. The next time the wolf appears, it’s a few days after the Nogitsune, and Stiles hasn’t been sleeping. When he does trip into something resembling sleep, it’s full of horror, violence, fear, and a loss of control. Stiles wakes up screaming and covered in sweat, his voice already raw. The Nogitsune is gone, but it haunts Stiles with a ferocity that Stiles is starting to fear more than the thing itself.

Stiles and his dad are eating dinner and avoiding all the topics that are weighing on them both. His dad is giving him worried glances and Stiles knows he looks like shit, dark circles under his eyes and a haunted face. Stiles gave in and made homemade mac and cheese because they both needed some comfort food. The house smells like baked cheese and home, when there’s a bark at the door. Neither of them move until the sound comes again, louder this time accompanied by a thumping noise against the door, like something large and heavy is throwing itself against the wood. Stiles is already laughing when his dad gets up and walks out of the kitchen with a sigh.

Stiles hears the door open. “Stiles, I think it’s for you.”

There’s a clicking of nails on the tile floor, then the wolf rounds the corner and sits beside Stiles, laying its head in Stiles’s lap. Stiles threads his fingers through the wolf’s fur and relaxes into the sensation.

“Uh, Stiles, that’s not a dog, is it?’

“Nope.” Stiles pops the p and tightens his hand into a fist in the wolf’s fur.

“Care to tell me why it’s here?”

Stiles shrugs. “Don’t know, Dad.”

“Is it Scott?”

The wolf, offended, growls and flashes red eyes at the Sheriff.

“Derek, then,” his dad says.

The wolf licks Stiles’s hand then lays down at his feet. The next sigh from his dad is drawn out and long suffering, but he doesn’t say anything else about their visitor. The dinner conversation is lighter than it was before—Stiles is smiling by the end and some of the worry lines on the Sheriff's face have eased. 

The wolf follows Stiles through the house for the rest of the night, laying on his feet while he plays video games and curling up on Stiles’s bed when it’s time to go to sleep. For the first time in weeks, the nightmares don’t come and Stiles sleeps through the night. For a long time after that, the wolf is a regular at the Stilinski household and the terrors in the night are silent.

\---

The first time it happens, Derek thinks it’s a fluke precipitated by too much death and sadness and the noose of guilt that never leaves his neck. He needs comfort and home and there’s only one place his feet take him, one place that feels like all those things. Derek tries to full shift again after that first night, after the Alpha Pack when he goes to Stiles, and he can’t, no matter how hard he tries. Derek decides to let it go and he never mentions it to Stiles and Stiles never brings it up.

They defeat the Nogitsune but Derek can’t forget the fear that clawed through him when he thought Stiles might be lost to them, to him. He patrols around the Stilinski house for three days afterwards for reasons he can’t explain and he hears Stiles, not sleeping, still drowning in nightmares, fear, and guilt. On the fourth night, Derek is determined to do something to help Stiles. He intended to knock on the door and offer to distract him with movies or video games, but Derek finds himself changing into his full wolf form again for the second time and standing on the Stilinski’s front porch.

Things are easier, less complicated in his wolf form, and he gives into the need to be with Stiles, to protect him, and to be a comfort when the nightmares rear their head, for both of them. Derek goes back every night, until the haunted look leaves Stiles’s face and the teen sleeps through the night.

Derek is a born werewolf and he’s not an idiot, so it doesn’t take him long to figure out he can only fully shift when Stiles needs comfort. There’s only two ways a were can learn to shift to their true form—become an evolved version of themselves or find their mate. Derek knows he’s not evolved and that only leaves the latter reason. The knowledge presses down into Derek and joins the litany of other reasons he berates himself daily.

His wolf, leaning on Derek’s own feelings for Stiles, which he was content to ignore until the end of time, has chosen Stiles, sarcastic, stupidly brave, brilliant Stiles who is still a teenager, as their mate. There’s no way Derek is going to burden Stiles with this knowledge, no way he is going to press forever and lifetime into the equation when Stiles deserves to have as normal of a life as Derek can manage to give him. 

The connection is tender and new and Derek learns to live with the way it stretches and pulls. Nothing is peaceful in Beacon Hills and eventually, Derek has to leave Stiles in the desert. The pain in Derek’s chest as he leaves steals his breath and he almost turns back, almost, but after all this, he thinks Stiles will be much better off without him. He stays away much longer than he intends to.

\---

After the desert, Stiles doesn’t see Derek in any form for a long time. He never told anyone about the wolf coming to his house to basically be his security blanket, so Stiles sees no point in telling them about the jagged wound its absence leaves or the constant awareness he has that Derek is not in Beacon Hills anymore. Derek stays gone for so long that Stiles tries to stop counting the days. The number itself is a dagger that sinks deeper with every breath, but the number keeps getting larger and Stiles never loses track of it. Derek’s absence is a wound that never fully heals. That absence sinks in every day and the cut leaks a little more blood as time passes. Stiles learns to live with the pain.

\---

Seeing Derek again, in the flesh, not on video surveillance, is like getting punched in the gut by a brick wall. Stiles’s flesh has knit around that dagger of absence and it twists, and Stiles can barely breathe through the haze of pain. He doesn’t have time to register that months on the run have done nothing but hone Derek into something a little more lean, a little harder, before there is the usual fighting and bullets and blood. Derek pulls Stiles out of the warehouse, almost in one piece except for Stiles’s damn toe, and deposits Stiles at the ambulance for the paramedic to patch him up. 

Stiles has already concocted a cover for Derek, labeling him as an informant, so Derek is safe, but he still has to answer questions. Stiles’s eyes track Derek’s progress as he is transferred from person to person to talk and retell the events of why he was in that warehouse. Stiles’s toe hurts like a son of a bitch, but Derek’s eyes keep snagging on Stiles and Stiles keeps forgetting to feel anything at all.

Finally, Derek is finished and walks in Stiles’s direction and Stiles stops moving, everything pinpointing down to Derek’s approach, which resembles stalking more than anything else. Stiles slides off the gurney, oblivious to the throbbing of his foot, and wraps Derek in a hug. Derek hesitates for an agonizing moment and Stiles thinks he’s crossed some sort of no touching rule, when Derek’s arms come around him. Derek squeezes, grabbing fistfuls of Stiles’s shirt, and burying his face in the place behind Stiles’s ear.

Something clicks into place and Stiles takes the first full breath he’s had in months, despite the bruising Derek is giving his ribs, and the breath is full of the smell of Derek and home. It’s overwhelming and Stiles’s knees threaten to collapse with relief. 

“I missed you.” The words are dragged from Stiles and he whispers them into Derek’s neck.

A full body tremor makes its way through Derek and his grip on Stiles contracts before it loosens, but he doesn’t let go. “I missed you too.” The words are broken and desperate and Stiles clings to them like a benediction.

That’s the most feelings Stiles gets from Derek before they are on the road in Derek’s car and driving non-stop to Beacon Hills. 

The pack wins the day, barely, though they all come out more wounded and bloody than they were before, which really is par for the course. The pack goes home for the night and no one goes home alone because the Pack bonds ease the trauma of the day. By some unspoken agreement, no one volunteers to go home with Stiles because Derek is standing next to him, against him, the entire time in a silent show that Stiles is unsure how to process. Stiles gets in his car alone and drives home. His heart is in his throat as he drives and he’s barely able to swallow around the fear that lingers in his blood until Roscoe’s headlights pan across the front porch of his house. An impossibly large wolf is sitting on the door mat, waiting on its haunches for Stiles.

Relief is so swift black spots dance in the corners of his vision and it takes a minute before Stiles gets out of the jeep, moving with the speed of someone a hundred years old. Stiles and the wolf maintain eye contact as Stiles walks slowly to the porch. He pauses next to the wolf, takes a shuddering breath and sinks his shaking fingers into the ruff of the wolf’s neck. The wolf leans into his legs, a pressure and presence that Stiles has never forgotten. Tears spill over and Stiles is still shaking but he feels steadier than he has in all the time Derek’s been gone.

The wolf looks up at Stiles and whines. Stiles drops to his knees and buries his face in Derek’s fur and allows himself a few more more tears, then says, “I missed you too. I’m glad you’re here.”

The wolf follows Stiles inside and goes right up to Stiles’s room and lays on his bed. Stiles doesn’t even bother undressing, but lays next to the wolf, curling around him, letting the tension drain from his body.

“If wolves were on the moon, would they ever stop howling?” Stiles asks the wolf.

The wolf huffs in response and gives Stiles a long swipe of a kiss on Stiles’s temple. They fall asleep and Stiles knows that everything is going to be okay. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’ve played three hours of the original Street Fighter when Scott turns to Stiles and asks, “What’s going on with you and Derek?”

**Chapter 2**

Things are quiet for a while and the Pack settles into a routine of enjoying their last summer before college. They do some training and Stiles starts running through the Preserve in the mornings, determined to train more and keep up with the wolves as much as possible. The first time he runs, he knows the wolf is following him, but neither of them acknowledge it. The next morning, the wolf runs with him and, after that, Stiles and the wolf run every morning together.

In July, Cora slides back into Beacon Hills. The pack is at Derek’s loft eating tacos and arguing about what kind of pie is the best pie when Derek, then the rest of the wolves stop talking and listen. Stiles is ready to stand and grab his bat, which is leaning against the wall by the couch, when Derek stops him with a hand on Stiles’s arm. 

“It’s Cora.”

Derek wrenches open the door and pulls his sister into a fierce hug. He has to relinquish her to the rest of the pack as they hug Cora and run their hands over her, reassuring all of them that she’s here and Pack and home. The night turns into a celebration and they all end up sleeping in a pile on Derek’s bed, safe and together. Stiles’s heart is so full he sleeps with a smile on his face and his hand wrapped around Derek’s wrist.

\---

They’ve played three hours of the original Street Fighter when Scott turns to Stiles and asks, “What’s going on with you and Derek?”

Stiles chokes on the Cheeto he just swallowed. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Scott looks at Stiles like he’s stupid. “I know you’ve been running together in the mornings.”

“How do you know that?”

Scott doesn't answer his question. “He touches you more than he used to. Sometimes, when I see you in the morning, you still smell like him.”

After their runs, the wolf always rubs his sides against Stiles legs and Stiles is always sure to scratch the wolf under his chin. The wolf has the softest fur and Stiles can’t help but run his fingers through it before they part every morning. The wolf leans into it and makes that rumbling contented noise that Stiles loves. Stiles feels himself flush and tries to redirect the conversation. He’s not ready for it. He’s been steadfast in his ignoring of what the wolf coming to him might mean and how he feels about it.

Stiles replays the last few months since Derek has been back. “Derek touches everyone. You all do. It’s a werewolf thing.”

Scott just looks at him and Stiles can’t think of anything to distract Scott from this very terrible conversation, so naturally, his mouth makes it worse. “Did you know Derek could transform into a full wolf?”

Scott stops playing the game and really looks at Stiles. “Since when?”

“Since after the Alpha pack.”

“Since after the Alpha pack?” Scott’s words go up at the end.

Stiles fidgets. “A few times after that, but in the mornings, that’s how Derek runs. With me.”

“Stiles, Derek never trains as a wolf with us. Ever. I didn’t even think he could do that. According to Deaton, the ability is rare.”

Stiles thinks there’s something more to this but he’s also well aware that he may be fishing for meaning where there is none. Nevertheless, after Scott falls asleep, Stiles starts researching and what he finds makes his heart race and hope bloom. 

\---

The summer is almost over and they’re all at Scott’s house grilling burgers and lounging around the backyard. Stiles, Derek, and Scott shoo Melissa out of the kitchen and clean up while everyone else is outside enjoying the sunset. Stiles is supposed to be drying dishes, but instead he twists up the towel and flicks Scott with the end of it.

Scott yelps in a very undignified manner for an alpha and Stiles cackles with glee. Derek rolls his eyes, so Stiles adjusts his aim and flicks the towel at him. 

Derek catches the end of the towel. “You’ll regret it if you do that again.” Derek is using his serious voice, but his eyes are sparking with something like happiness and Stiles wants to drink it down like nectar.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Stiles yanks the towel out of Derek's hand and starts twisting it again. Stiles keeps his eyes steady on Derek and Stiles feels his neck heat at the intensity in that gaze but he bravados through it, takes a step back, and flicks Scott with the towel, right on the ass.

“Hey!” Scott yells.

Derek’s eyes break contact with Stiles to look over at Scott, and Stiles uses the opportunity to whip the towel quickly at Derek. The tip of it catches him right in the arm and Derek growls as it makes contact and lunges for Stiles. Stiles tries to run, but he’s too busy laughing at his victory to get any real speed, besides, he can’t outrun the werewolves even on his best day despite all the morning runs. Derek has him pinned on his stomach before Stiles can make it out of the kitchen. Stiles is still laughing madly and squirming, trying very hard to ignore the fact that Derek is on top of him. Stiles’s entire body is on fire and he knows he has to reign it in or things are going to get really awkward, really quickly.

Derek seems completely unaware of the crisis Stiles is having. “Scott, grab the towel. You get a freebie.”

“No fair. You two are ganging up on me. I’m only human. I’m defenseless.”

Derek leans over and says in a low voice right into Stiles’s ear. “You haven’t been defenseless for a very long time.”

Stiles holds himself very still and tries not to think about the way Derek’s breath feels on the shell of his ear, the way Derek’s weight holding Stiles down feels more like an invitation and less like a game, or the way Stiles’s body is pressing into the hard floor with just enough friction. 

Scott is chuckling and whips the towel at Stiles’s legs. “Payback.” He snaps it twice before Derek gets up, but Stiles barely feels the sting over the rushing in his own ears as he wills his heart to calm down before the wolves notice something other than wolfplay is happening. 

Stiles takes a deep breath before getting up, willing his body into submission and succeeding, barely. “I hate you both, infinitely.”

The three of them laugh their way through the rest of the dishes and everything in Stiles feels warm. 

“I’d like to rebuild my family’s house and offer it to the pack, as the Pack House.” Derek says as they put away the last dish, as if he hasn’t just said something incredibly important, both for himself and the pack.

Scott puts an arm around Derek, his big brown eyes serious. “That’s really generous, but I know that may be hard for you.”

Derek returns Scott’s concerned look with determination. “Look, I know your mom can’t keep feeding us all the time and a pack needs a home.” Derek’s gaze shifts to Stiles and he adds, “You’re all going off to college, but you should have a place that belongs to the Pack when you come home.” 

Two days later, when Stiles and the wolf run by the remains of the Hale House, there are already construction workers crawling over the structure.

\---

Most of them aren’t going far. Stiles, Scott, Cora, and Malia are going to Valley State which is an easy two hour drive from Beacon Hills. Lydia is going away to MIT, but promises that she’ll be home every break. Jackson has a life in London, but never stays away longer than six months at a time—college won’t change that. The pack is together for one last night, piled into Derek’s loft, and the entire space is filled with light and laughter. Melissa, Stiles’s dad, and Chris are sitting at the kitchen table, their heads together, talking. Chris is harder than he used to be before grief wore away all his soft edges, and Stiles knows that all of them leaving for college has him thinking about Allison. She should be going with them too, getting ready to explore the world. Lydia and Parrish are sitting on the loveseat. Scott, Malia, Cora, Theo, and Liam are in a pile on the floor playing some elaborate game of wrestling that involves them trying to steal each other’s socks. Malia and Cora are currently winning. Mason is cheering them on.

Derek is alone in the corner watching everything with hooded eyes, lukewarm beer in one hand. There really is only one option for Stiles.

He walks over to Derek and leans against the wall next to him, shoulders touching because Stiles doesn’t want to be this close and not be touching Derek. “We’ll be back at the end of the month. You’ll barely have time to miss us.”

Derek makes a sound in the back of his throat and looks at Stiles. It brings their faces very close and for a heartbeat Stiles swears that Derek’s kaleidoscope eyes look broken with emotion, but Derek blinks and they are wiped clean. Stiles’s heart responds though, kicking up painfully before evening out into something normal. He’s gotten very good at controlling his heart in a room full of weres.

“It’s been a while since I was alone. The quiet might be nice,” Derek says, but his voice suggests otherwise.

“Liam, Theo, and Mason will be here, though they’re probably going to be less trouble than the rest of us. Plus, here’s this thing called a cell phone. You can call us,” Stiles hesitates and plunges forward, “you can call me anytime.”

Derek nods. “I know.”

Melissa and Chris leave. Parrish and Lydia crash on the couch. Everyone else is in a pile on top of sleeping bags and air mattresses on the floor of the living room, including Derek, who is laying between Cora and Theo. Stiles gets tired of being kicked and being overheated with so many werewolf bodies pressed together, so gets up and he stumbles up the stairs to Derek’s room. 

The window is open and it’s quiet and cool when Stiles falls face first into the bed. It’s just the right amount of softness and Stiles breathes in deep as he lays his head on one of the pillows, the smell of Derek calming the tinge of sadness that is the only blemish on his anticipation over their departure tomorrow. He’s ready, but he’s leaving something here that he’s not sure he can survive without. He told Derek they could talk on the phone and Stiles would be home often, but he can already feel a yawning chasm open as he thinks about leaving Derek here and it hurts to breathe past it. It’s been a long time since he’s felt that tightness in his chest and it catches Stiles off guard.

There is a clicking sound on the wooden floor then a weight joins him on the bed. Stiles already knows what he’ll see when he cracks one eye open. The wolf butts his nose into Stiles’s face and Stiles shifts so the wolf can lay down while Stiles curls around him.

“It’s been a while.”

The wolf sighs.

Stiles runs his hand down the length of the wolf. “I’ll be back before you know it.” Stiles is barely awake but he knows the wolf will be gone in the morning and Derek will be up making breakfast. As a wolf, Derek is much more approachable so Stiles has no trouble saying things to the wolf that he would normally keep to himself. “I need a favor from you.”

The wolf lifts his head and looks at him with eyes that flash blue.

“Take care of my dad for me. Make sure he eats a vegetable now and then. He likes you and I think you’ll both be lonely when I’m gone.” Stiles runs a hand over the wolf’s head and the wolf pushes into the pressure before laying his head down.

“Stay safe. If you need us, call us back. You don’t have to fight alone.”

They fall asleep, and in the morning Stiles wakes up in an empty bed. When they drive out of Beacon Hills, Stiles feels a tug, right in his center. It stretches and thins as they travel, but stays tethered and Stiles smiles to himself. He thinks he knows what it is, but there’s time ahead of him to explore it.

\---

Derek isn’t surprised anymore at the odd timing or random content of the texts he gets from Stiles that first semester. There’s a steady awareness of absence and the texts remind him that Stiles is far away but not gone. Though Derek misses Stiles, and the rest of the pack that has gone to school, he knows that the break from Beacon Hills and a foray into normal college life is exactly what all of them need and deserve. Derek spends time rebuilding his family’s house and training the younger pack members. He tries not to think about how Stiles’s scent fades from the loft in between visits.

Derek is shopping one day, missing Stiles and reminding himself that the relationship he has right now with Stiles, something other than friendship, but nothing approaching anything more serious, is enough and more than Derek deserves when he sees it. Derek chuckles as he buys it and smiles as he packs it up and mails it north. 

\---

During midterms, Stiles goes to pick up his mail, head still going over the notes he took from Botany, and finds a key in his P.O. Box. Curious, he takes the key to one of the larger boxes for package deliveries. He doesn’t remember ordering anything. He opens the door and inside there is a medium sized package with familiar, precise handwriting on the outside. Stiles’s heart rate increases and his face heats up. There aren’t any wolves around, so he doesn’t have to hide his reaction. He traces the letters of his name then ghosts his fingers over the return address. An ache he’s become intimate with throbs and Stiles leans into it, rolls it around and does nothing to dissipate it. It reminds him of what he hopes is waiting for him.

Stiles walks back to his dorm room in record time. Scott is laying on his bed reading and Stiles ignores him, dumping his mail and the brown box on his desk. 

“What’d you get?” Scott sits up, curious and eager.

Stiles’s heart is even but his smile is wide. “I don’t know. It’s from Derek.”

Scott’s eyebrows go all the way up to his hairline, but his mouth stays shut. Scott has stopped trying to pry Derek information out of Stiles. Stiles uses scissors to cut through the tape, fingers trembling a little as he opens the box, and starts laughing. There’s no note, of course there isn’t, but inside the box there are two things: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and a black stuffed wolf.

\---

The rest of the semester goes by in a blur of lectures, labs, too many late nights, and the occasional overindulgence of alcohol where Stiles deeply resents his friends’ inability to get drunk. Stiles texts Derek a few times a week, never anything too serious—he sends them to amuse Derek and to imagine Derek smiling or rolling his eyes or both.

**Stiles: I registered for spring classes. Botany 2 and a mythology course.**

**Stiles: I just ate an entire bag of Twizzlers and I’m questioning my life choices.**

**Derek: It’s 2am. Go to bed.**

**Stiles: What’s the internal temperature of a Tauntaun?......... Lukewarm.**

**Derek: Go to bed Stiles**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

At the beginning of November, Stiles is starting to countdown to Thanksgiving break, the leaves are a shimmering mix of reds and yellows, and the air has a bite to it. His grades are great and, other than missing his dad and Derek, Stiles has settled into college in a way he didn’t think possible. 

One night, Stiles wakes up and his heart is beating frantically, he can’t catch his breath, and a sick fear is slithering down his spine. He knows with a deep seated conviction that these feelings are not his own and his stomach gives a lurch of understanding.

“Scott,” Stiles croaks, throat dry from sleep. “Scott, wake up.”

There is some undignified thrashing. “What? Stiles, it’s 2:30 am.”

“Something’s wrong. With Derek and the Pack.” Stiles is only certain about Derek, but there are ghosts of the others in the emotions he’s feeling.

Scott stills and his eyes flash red. “You’re right.”

It’s the first time Stiles has been able to feel the Pack ties this strongly. He’s had whispers of it from Derek before this, but nothing this heavy and he’s too terrified of what it means to be elated.

Stiles fumbles for his phone and calls Derek. “C’mon. Pick up.” There’s no answer. “Dammit.”

Scott tries Theo while Stiles dials Liam. No one answers and Stiles pauses to take a breath when there’s a knock at the door, insistent.

Stiles launches himself at the door. Malia is there, hair in a messy bun and hastily dressed in jeans and t-shirt with Cora on her heels. 

“Something’s happened,” Malia says, barreling in the door.

“We know.” Stiles grabs a bag and starts throwing things into it—his first aid kit, the herb kit he’s been building, the spelled knives he made in October, and the mountain ash bat he finished this week with runes down the shaft. He pulls on pants, a clean shirt, and his red hoodie. He looks at Scott. “Anything else? Anyone answer?”

“No.” The word is like lead between the four of them. Scott gets dressed and they rush to the Jeep.

They’re on the road in less than five minutes. The tendrils of fear have loosened, but there is a sick tension coiled in him and Stiles can’t tell if it belongs to him or Derek or some combination of both. If Stiles ever wanted confirmation of what the bond between him and Derek meant, this is not what he would have chosen. 

Stiles drives and Scott keeps trying to call someone. Finally, Scott gets through to his mom.

“Mom, is everything okay?”

Stiles wishes he had werewolf hearing so he could hear what she says when Scott puts her on speaker. “...been working all night. Are you okay?”

“You haven’t heard from anyone in the Pack? Something’s wrong. When’s the last time you heard from any of them?”

“I had dinner with Noah and Parrish at the station last night. It’s been a few days since I saw the boys.”

Stiles knew the boys included Derek—Melissa mothered them all and Stiles had seen the looks of adoration they all gave her, which she absolutely deserved. That woman was a goddess.

“None of them are answering their phones,” Scott tells her.

“I’m sure they're fine,” her voice is reassuring and Stiles wishes desperately that it was that simple, to hope and have it be so.

“No, Mrs. McCall. Something is wrong. We felt something happen to them.”

“Oh,” she pauses, “Okay, call me when you can. What’s your ETA?”

Stiles looks at the clock. “Hour and some change.”

“I’ll be home by then if you need me. I’ll let Chris and Noah know to be on alert. Noah can call Parrish.”

“Thanks, Mom. We’re headed to the loft first. Love you.”

“I love you too. Be safe.”

Scott hangs up and Stiles drives. Malia and Cora huddle together in the back seat, a bundle of barely contained energy.

“How are we going to find them?” she asks.

Scott is silent. Stiles sucks in his lips and thinks. “I think I know a way.”

No one questions what exactly that way is, which is good because Stiles only has a vague idea that is the longest shot in the history of long shots. Time has turned to molasses by the time they finally get to the loft and Stiles knows before he gets out of the Jeep that Derek isn’t there. 

“I can’t hear any heartbeats.” Scott confirms what Stiles knew.

“They’re not here.” Stiles’s fear is starting to be replaced by something bordering on rage. He bounds up the stairs, pulling a pink key with a unicorn on it from his key ring. He slides it into the lock and opens the door.

Scott lifts an eyebrow. “How’d you get a key?”

“Good looks, wit, and old fashioned sleight of hand, Scotty.” Stiles wiggles his fingers at Scott.

The loft is empty and the lights are off. Scott, Cora, and Malia race through the loft smelling things while Stiles turns on the lights and looks around. Nothing is out of place. There’s no blood on the walls, broken furniture, or anything to suggest that something happened here that would cause the alarm he feels to swell. The door was locked, which means Derek left under his own power, locking the door as he went, but that doesn’t ease the fear racing through Stiles. Derek’s laptop is sitting open with the screen dark on the kitchen table. Stiles boots it up.

Malia runs into the main room from the first floor bedrooms that belong to Theo and Liam. “No one but the Pack has been here.”

Scott hops down the stairs. “Not upstairs either. Just Derek and Peter, though Peter hasn’t been here in weeks.”

Stiles types in Derek’s pin, the date of the Hale fire because the man can’t let any opportunity to self-torture pass him by. Scott gives him a sideways glance, but Stiles is used to getting those from Scott where Derek is concerned. Stiles knows he’s going to have to come clean soon about a lot of things to Scott, but now is most definitely not the time.

Stiles pulls up the Beastiary. Lydia had helped him build in a feature to their online Bestiary that marked when pages were last read, a tool he thought would come in handy for situations exactly like this. Stiles hates that Beacon Hills is predictable that way and loves that he anticipated it. 

Stiles takes one look at the last bookmark and curses. “Shit.”

“What?” Scott and Malia say, crowding over his shoulder.

Cora drops into a chair and stares at Stiles.

“What’s a lich?” Malia asks.

Stiles pinches his nose. “Lich, with a hard ch. Why do I feel like we live in some ridiculous version of D&D half the time?”

“How bad is it?” Scott asks.

“Bad. Like soul sacrifices and resurrection bad.”

“How do we kill it?” Malia, always practical.

Stiles scans the bestiary entry. “It’ll have a lair somewhere. It can cause necropsy with a touch and,” Stiles leans forward and peers at the screen. “Fuck, it can paralyze with a look.”

“But how do we kill it, Stiles?” Cora pushes.

Stiles skims the end. “It should have a phylactery, an enchanted vial or bottle, where it stores the souls it needs to exist. I wouldn’t really call it living since technically, a lich is dead. Most liches were wizards before they got all soul sucky. Geez, could this be any creepier?”

“Stiles, focus.” Scott’s hand is on his shoulder.

“Smash the phylactery and we should be able to kill it the old fashioned way, slice and dice.”

The three weres look relieved, but Stiles knows it’s not going to be that easy. Stiles has a trick up his sleeve for the next part that he hopes works even if what it means in the long run is less certain. He goes to the book shelf and pulls a map of Beacon Hills from where it sits folded between two books. Stiles moves the laptop aside, spreads the map out on the table, and fishes around in his backpack for the zippered pouch he knows is there. From the zippered pouch, Stiles pulls one of the small bundles nestled inside. It’s a little pouch made of a green material, tied with a string made from natural fibers, brown and soft to the touch. Stiles unrolls the string and fingers the material of the pouch.

“What is that?” Scott asks.

Stiles clears his throat. “When we were home for mid-term break, I cut pieces from everyone’s clothes and asked for everyone’s hair, remember?” Scott nods. “I’ve been working on some spells. Mostly wards, but one of them is a location spell. I’m not sure I’m good enough to do it for everyone, but this is Derek’s and I can find him with it.” Actually, Stiles thinks he could find Derek without it. Stiles feels a pull, right under his sternum to the west end of town, and he knows he could follow that tether like a compass needle to Derek. He never noticed it until he left for college, but after coming back and forth for the semester, he knows what it is and he’s been researching. He also knows what it means.

Stiles holds the end of the string, dangling the scrap of Derek’s Henley over the map and pulls on the well of magic in him, the spark that is always there. For the first time, Stiles adds that awareness he has of Derek to his own power and lets it guide the pendulum. The bundle of green moves and Stiles reminds himself to be still as it settles somewhere over the west of town, by the old train station. Stiles lets go of the power and there is a slight let down of energy but nothing he can’t push past. The four of them look at each other and get the hell moving.

Scott texts Chris and Parrish and tells them to meet them at the old train station. He texts Stiles’s dad and tells him to be on stand-by for clean-up, just in case. Scott fires off a text to his mom as they park a half mile from the train station. Stiles grabs his bat as he climbs out of the Jeep and slides the spelled knife into the sheath that sits against his forearm. None of his herbs will help them, so he leaves his bag in the car. It’s hard to swallow past his heart, but the adrenaline rush and the certainty of danger is as familiar as it is unwelcome. 

Proximity to Derek means that the tether he always feels is loose and warm, and Stiles knows that at least Derek knows they are close. Derek and the other wolves would have heard the Jeep from miles away and will be ready for whatever comes next. Hopefully, the lich’s hearing isn’t nearly as good. 

Stiles looks at Scott. Scott tilts his head and listens. “Three heartbeats and something… else. It’s alive but the heartbeat sounds, wrong.”

Chris pulls up and they fill him in. Chris came armed with a crossbow and, Stiles assumes, a shit ton of knives and guns in places he can’t see.

“Remember, don’t touch it or let it touch you and don’t look at it’s eyes.” Stiles tightens his grip on the neck of his bat and pushes some of his own power into it. The runes glow a bright green and a smile, wide and vicious, spreads over Stiles’s face. “Let’s go get our Pack.”

Chris separates from them to go in through the roof or a window on the top floor, whatever’s convenient. Stiles, Malia, Cora, and Scott sneak to the back door. The train station is a long building, with a second floor of offices that covers half of the open space of the first floor. There are two large double doors that open onto the old train platform on one side and a set of doors that open into the old parking area. There’s no way they’re going to sneak in from the ground floor unnoticed. Stiles inches his head over the sill of a window to see what they’re dealing with.

Theo and Liam are tied up inside a circle of symbols on the floor. They look unconscious and pale, but otherwise unharmed. If they are already in the circle, Stiles knows they need to move fast. The lich is walking the perimeter of the circle chanting. A blue glass jar with a steady black fog pumping out of it sits at the head of the circle. Derek is on the floor, eyes wide and sweeping the room, not tied up but immobile and against a wall, which means he looked at the damn thing when he shouldn’t have. 

_ That’s what he gets for not calling me first _ , Stiles thinks.  _ Stupid werewolf. _

“Scott, you, Cora, Malia go in the door on the platform. Make a nice, loud entrance. I’ll sneak in this side while it’s distracted and try to smash the phylactery. That’s the priority.”

When the four of them burst into the room, the lich screeches like metal against rocks and the weres in the room bend over in pain. The lich swivels it’s gaze to Stiles, who drops his eyes and dives for the blue jar. The lich is on him before he is even halfway there, shoving him down as warm fetid air washes over Stiles and he gags.

“Man, take a shower once in a while.” Stiles tries to get to his feet, but there is a pressure on his back and legs.

“This is unexpected, but welcome. Your souls will feed me for years. An alphas, five betas, and you, whatever you are.” The lich runs a hand down Stiles’s spine. “Human but also something else. Delicious.”

Derek’s eyes are blue and full of rage. Stiles takes a moment to drink in the sight of him before saying, “I’m a Stiles and you’ve fucked with the wrong Pack.”

Scott’s roar shakes the walls and the weight on Stiles’s back eases up when the lich shifts to face Scott as he barrels into the monster. Scott knocks the lich over enough that Stiles scrambles to his feet, tightens his grip on the bat, and pulls on his power until the bat is glowing again. He rushes to the jar and swings down with all his strength, the bat given weight by the intent of his own magic. 

The wood of the bat makes contact and the glass shatters, sending a sound wave out from the epicenter that rips through Stiles like thousands of knives. Stiles drops to his knees and looks down but here is no blood on him. Everything screams with pain and Stiles collapses, unable to keep his head from slamming onto the wooden panels of the train station floor. There is a ringing in his ears and yelling, but Stiles can’t separate any of the noises into something that makes sense. He hopes he doesn’t have internal bleeding, but it’s most likely the magic battered his aura more than it bruised his body. Still hurts like a son of a bitch. Underneath the whirlpool of agony, he can feel the panic from Derek, rage from Scott, a killing focus from Malia and Cora, and still the tang of fear from Theo and Liam. 

The pain starts receding, but Stiles’s arms and legs won’t move so he’s still lying on the floor when Scott and Derek roll him over.

Derek’s eyes are wide and filled with a fierceness that Stiles has seen before and it makes his heart stop and restart to have it directed at him. Stiles knows Derek feels his erratic heart beat because Derek’s hand tightens on Stiles’s arm. Derek and Scott’s mouths are moving, forming words and no doubt yelling at him, but Stiles can’t hear the words over the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his heart. Destroying the phylactery must have caused a sort of sonic bomb made of magic and Stiles had taken the brunt of it as it spread out.

“Mm’okay.” His mouth has trouble with the words. “Magic wave messed me up. Give me a sec.”

Scott backs off and goes to help Malia and Cora untie Liam and Theo, but Derek’s hands pat down Stiles, checking for injuries, looking for some additional explanation as to why Stiles is immobile on the floor. Derek’s mouth is in a tight line and his hands are clinical, but Stiles knows, can feel Derek’s anxiety colored with sharp fear.

Stiles manages to move his hand and grabs Derek’s arm. “I’m ok. The phyler… phylacn… phylactery,” Stiles finally gets the word out. “The magic wave from the jar gave me a magic concussion. Just gimme a sec. I’ll be okay.”

Stiles closes his eyes and takes deep breaths until the pain recedes and he can hear again. Derek’s hands never leave him. One rests on his shoulder and the other is in the middle of his chest, at the base of his sternum, where his tether to Derek begins. Stiles breathes and focuses on that spot and sinks into it. It’s the seat of his own spark and the anchor for something else, something large and growing that Stiles isn’t ready to face. Soon, but not yet. 

He opens his eyes and Derek’s wide hazel eyes meet his. Stiles gives him his best frown he can muster. “You should’ve called us.” His words still sound slurry.

Derek puts an arm around Stiles’s shoulders and helps him sit up. “We thought we could handle it.”

“You looked at it, didn’t you?” Stiles demands and Derek has the grace to look contrite. “Look, we know you didn’t really need us, but you should’ve at least told us you were going out hunting in case something like this happened.”

“How did you know we were here? That we needed help?” Liam asks, looking shaky, but his skin is no longer the gray color it had been while the lich was chanting.

Stiles looks over at the lich, it’s body was ripped into two and the parts are shredded for good measure, then back at Liam. “I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was having a panic attack and I knew something was wrong.” Panic attack is an easier explanation than the slick of fear Stiles had felt coming from Derek two hours away.

“We tried calling but none of you would answer your phones.” Scott runs his hand down Theo’s arm and the other wolf leans into the touch, seeking reassurance.

“You knew something was wrong?” Derek presses, never taking his gaze from Stiles who nods in agreement. “But how did you find us here?”

Malia puts a hand on her hip and says, “Stiles used a piece of your favorite shirt and some hair and did a locator spell on you.”

Derek’s mouth almost ticks up, but he makes himself frown again. “That’s why my green shirt had a piece cut from the bottom.”

Stiles shrugs. “Sorry not sorry.”

Chris comes down the stairs. “Everything upstairs is clear. He was living in a room up there, but I cleared it out. I can take care of this body.”

“It’ll need to be burned and the glass spread in four corners of the fire.” Stiles accepts Derek’s hand as he struggles to stand then sways a little. Derek steadies him by sliding an arm around Stiles’s waist.

“Malia and I will stay to help,” Scott says. “Derek, you and Cora can take everyone else back to my house. Mom’s waiting. She should look at Stiles.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles crosses his arms but almost loses his balance again until Derek tightens his hold on him. “Okay, maybe I’m a little concussed.” He looks around. “Where’s my bat?”

Theo bends over to pick it up, but Stiles yells. “Don’t touch it!” Stiles takes another breath. “It’s mountain ash dipped in mistletoe. It’ll burn like the devil if you touch it.” The wolves all back away and Stiles shuffles over the shards of glass to pick up his bat. The weight of it is perfectly balanced in his hand and he grins wide at the Pack when he turns back to them, pushing a little power into it to make the runes glow for show.

Theo chuckles. “When did you get to be so scary, Stiles?”

Stiles tries to twirl the bat, but the effort throws him off balance and Derek catches him before he hits the ground. “Let’s go, Joe DeMaggio.”

“You made a joke.” Stiles laughs, leans into Derek more than he needs to, and they leave the warehouse.

Melissa makes Stiles lie on the couch, even though he’s feeling a lot better, and gives him a thorough checkup. “You’re fine, kiddo. No concussion, but I think someone should stay with you just in case. You can stay in the guest room. If you feel nauseous, have any memory loss, or other issues that seem off, you need to let me know right away.” She runs a hand over his forehead, smoothing over his hair, and a rush of affection for Scott’s mom, who has mothered him for half his life now, hits him in the chest.

“Thanks, Momma McCall.”

Stiles shuffles his way upstairs to the bathroom and looks in the mirror. There’s dried blood where it leaked from his ears and he looks pale but fine otherwise. Stiles cleans up and shuffles down the hall to the guest room. Derek is curled up, still human, in the overstuffed armchair in the corner and Stiles pauses in the doorway to look at him, letting the grounding that always comes with being close to Derek settle the last of his adrenaline from the night. Derek’s eyes track him as he crashes into the bed.

“No wolf tonight?” Stiles asks even though they never talk about it.

“Melissa said you need to be watched. I want to be able to help if I’m needed and wolves can’t talk. Changing could waste time.” Derek is so sincere and serious something in Stiles cracks open.

Stiles pats the bed. “It’s big. I promise not to spoon you unless you ask nice.”

Derek chokes a little and his neck turns red. Stiles laughs and flops over onto his stomach, digging the side of his head in the pillow to get comfortable. He closes his eyes and doesn’t move when the bed dips under Derek’s weight or when Derek lays an arm across the small of Stiles’s back. Stiles falls asleep with a smile on his face.

\---

Derek stays awake for a long time, listening to Stiles breathe, deep and contented, and to his heart beating, slow, steady, and very much human. Derek isn’t sure what’s worse, the fear and relief he felt when Stiles had burst into the train station or the knowledge that Stiles knew Derek was in danger from hundreds of miles away. The wolves in the Pack often developed a sense of each other after enough time and Derek is pleased his Pack was tightening enough to have this ability. He is less pleased to know that Stiles is so tied to him specifically. He’d hoped that his connection to Stiles was one sided because Derek can think of nothing worse than being connected forever to a broken alpha turned beta with enough baggage to fill a moving truck. His battered heart beats painfully as he watches Stiles sleep. Stiles deserves more than the pieces Derek can offer. He’s going to have to find the willpower to make Stiles believe it too.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Stiles breezes through his finals, Scott makes a decent showing, Cora is smug about her grades, and Malia struggles, but makes it through. They pack up, throwing things in Malia’s convertible and Stiles’s Jeep, and head back home to Beacon Hills for the Winter Break. Stiles throws his stuff in his room at home and starts a load of laundry. His dad isn’t home so he heads to the next most important stop for the day: Deaton’s.

As per usual, Deaton hides all his warm feelings at seeing Stiles behind a calm facade, but Stiles has his number and gives him a big hug, which the vet returns.

“What brings you here on your first day back, Stiles?”

Stiles rubs his hands together. “I want to officially start an apprenticeship with you. I’ll start this break, you can give me some homework for me to work on during the Spring semester and then I can pick back up in the summer. There’s a druid enclave in Washington that I’d like your permission to visit once you think I’m ready.”

Deaton’s voice and gaze are steady as if none of this shocks him, and maybe it doesn’t. Deaton is always a step ahead of even him. “What makes you think you need an invitation to the enclave?”

“I know they don’t accept just anyone and I know that if I go as your apprentice and as the druid of an established pack, it'll be easier for me to get in.” Stills shifts his weight.

“As always, you’ve done your research.”

“So will you? Teach me?”

Deaton did smile then, small but warm. “I’ve been waiting for you to be ready. I’d like nothing more.”

Stiles leaves the clinic loaded with books and a list of herbs and plants to research. Part of his genius plan involves becoming less of a liability to the Pack, to Derek. He heads to the loft with his books, not bothering to knock, just opening the door and dropping the books and papers on the long kitchen table. Cora is standing by the stove with a spatula.

“Hey, Stiles. Derek’s not here.”

“I know.”

Cora raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t comment. “I’m making grilled cheese. Want one?”

“Are you trying to seduce me?” Stiles bats his eyes at her.

She rolls her eyes and pulls more bread from the bag. “I’m not dumb enough to try. I know a lost cause when I see one.”

Stiles rubs his hands down his front and makes a suggestive move. “But then you’d miss all of this.” And that is exactly the moment Derek walks in, sweating from a run and looking unfairly amazing, and Stiles and Cora collapse on the floor laughing. Derek rolls his eyes, but not before Stiles sees the smile that Derek tries to hide. Derek runs a hand along the back of Stiles’s neck as he walks by and if Stiles leans into the touch a little, he doesn’t feel the least bit guilty.

Stiles is done with the grilled cheese and knee deep in the different kinds of mushrooms that can be used to make poisonous compounds when Derek slides onto the bench opposite Stiles with his hair still wet from the shower. Stiles steels himself not to notice how soft Derek looks in a blue t-shirt and worn jeans. But he does notice and files it away for later.

“What’re you researching?” Derek reads the spine of one of the books. “ _ Cultivation and Uses of Monkshood _ .” Derek’s eyes meet Stiles’s across the table. “Planning something?”

Stiles clears his throat. “Actually, yeah.” He hasn’t talked to Derek or Scott about this and technically, he probably should’ve at least floated the idea by the Alpha, but Stiles doesn’t think Scott will actually say no. “Deaton’s agreed to let me be his apprentice and give me a letter of introduction to a druid enclave in Washington once I've learned enough to study there.”

Derek is very still in the way the werewolves can be when they’re watching something closely. “Is that what you really want?

Stiles picks at the corner of the book he’s reading. “Well, yeah. I want to be useful to the Pack.”

“Stiles, you’re useful just the way you are. You and Mason both. You keep us grounded and remind us of our humanity.” Derek starts to reach across the table but stops. “Besides, you have a wicked bat.” 

Stiles has been practicing being more open to the thing that ties him to Derek, and in a smaller way to the rest of the Pack, and he feels a small pinch of anxiety from Derek. Stiles wants badly to ask if this connection goes both ways, but he’s afraid of the answer. He doesn’t want to know that he is, in fact, not special at all to Derek, and Stiles is not strong enough to face that truth, yet.

“I’m a spark, Derek. After the Nogitsune, I know there’s a darkness inside me that I can control or at the very least protect if I understand my own abilities. The first time I opened myself up to the Nemeton it was because I was trying to save lives. I don’t want to leave myself open to something like that ever again because of ignorance when I have the ability to make myself stronger. There’s the added bonus that it also benefits the Pack, and Scott needs a druid.”

“If it’s what you want.” Derek’s eyes never leave his face.

“It is.”

Derek allows himself to smile and Stiles can feel the relief and pride coming from Derek, but all Stiles can think about is what Derek looks like when he smiles.

\---

The Hale House is done the week before 4th of July and there’s a rush to get everything moved in, delivered, and hung before the party the Pack is planning. Everyone is home and Stiles is using the opportunity to get hair from everyone for the spell he needs to build the wards of the Preserve. He spent all Spring semester perfecting the spell by warding their dorm room, much to everyone’s annoyance when they couldn't enter the room on the occasions Stiles didn’t get the wording quite right. By the time summer rolls around, Stiles is ready to put some of what he’s been learning to the test.

They all eat way too much and lay around in a stupor for a couple of hours. After the moon rises, most of the wolves go running and Stiles grabs his bag, a canvas messenger bag he’s spelled and painted the double circle with the triskele on the center of the middle circle, and heads out into the woods. The moon is close to full so he doesn’t need the headlamp in his bag. His steps are steady and he only trips over a root once. 

Stiles walks into the Preserve until he finds the Nemeton. It’s still there, but now that Stiles has been learning more, he can feel the magic that radiates off it. Deaton has encouraged him to try to do magic near or on the Nemeton because Deaton thinks that with enough positive magic, the Nemeton might shift to something less malevolent and more benevolent. Stiles thinks it’s worth a try. 

He climbs into the center of the trunk and tries not to be too creeped out by all the terrible things that’ve happened because of this tree in the last few years. From his bag, he pulls out the pouch he made that holds the hair from all the pack members. Stiles draws some symbols on the trunk of the Nemeton with a stub of chalk from his bag, reciting the words from the spell he’s been crafting. At the end of the spell, the bag flames up and burns to nothing. While it burns, Stiles keeps a picture of the Preserve in his mind. It’s a simple warding, nothing fancy, but it will give the Pack extra protection in their territory. Eventually, he’d like to place some wards around the town as well and create some sort of magical alarm system, but for now, this spell will do.

Stiles can feel when the spell snaps into place and he gives the air a fist pump.

“Pleased with yourself?”

“Holy shit, a little warning.” Stiles’s heart is loud in his ears as it pounds through his veins, but not so loud that he can’t hear Derek’s chuckle, warm like chocolate, as it flows over Stiles.

“I’d apologize…” Derek sweeps his hands out.

“But you’re not sorry, jerk.” Stiles straightens up with a wide grin. “I completed the protection spell for the Preserve.”

Derek’s smile matches Stiles’s own and Stiles realizes with a jolt that Derek’s been smiling a lot more lately.  _ Good, he deserves nice things, _ Stiles thinks. Derek joins Stiles on the base of the Nemeton and they sit knee to knee, not talking. After a while, they lay down side by side and watch the stars. Derek is warm against Stiles’s side where they are pressed together and every small breath and movement makes Stiles’s awareness of Derek flare.

“How was your run?”

“Nice, the moon will be full soon and everything is sharper at this time of the month.”

Stiles wants to ask Derek something, but he’s not sure if now’s the time. He’s done a lot of research, read everything he could, and even asked Deaton and Scott some vague questions he really hopes they don’t examine too closely. The summer has been a good one, great in fact, and Stiles is worried that it’s halfway over already. He’s not ready to leave and go back to school, not ready to leave Derek, which is ridiculous since there is absolutely nothing happening between them, but there is a slim chance Stiles’s research is correct and Stiles is rambling to himself right now to avoid the topic at hand.

Derek’s fingers circle Stiles’s wrist. “Stiles, slow down. What is it? I swear I can hear your brain working.” 

Stiles has rehearsed this question for months but what comes out it is, “Are we going to talk about the full wolf thing?”  _ Smooth, Stilinski. _ Stiles had an entire lead up argument with facts and research, dammit.

Derek’s fingers tighten on Stiles’s wrist. “Is it a problem?”

Stiles swallows. That wasn’t what he thought Derek would ask. “No.”

“Do we need to talk about it?” Derek sounds defensive, but what Stiles feels from the connection with Derek is fear.

Disappointment is bitter on the back of Stiles’s tongue. “No, I guess not.”  _ Not yet, but we will soon. _

\---

The last day of summer vacation is a pack movie night. There’s a touch of apprehension and sadness in the air that even Mason can feel. The entire night is a kind of torture for Stiles, who wants nothing more than to curl up inside the Hale House and never leave while he battles anger at himself that he spent all summer circling Derek but doing nothing about anything. It’s been a wonderful summer that Stiles will always remember but probably always regret. 

Stiles gets up after the second movie and goes upstairs. The banister is a dark oak, polished and shining in the dim lights on the stairwell, and Stiles grips it as he goes upstairs. His bag is in one of the rooms that has a couple of beds in it. Derek and Scott both insisted that the house have enough beds for everyone if they wanted to stay over even if half the time everyone piles into one room. Stiles bypasses that room, with it’s warm greens and browns, and goes to the room at the end of the hall. 

Derek’s room.

He stands in the doorway and breathes deep, wishing desperately for werewolf senses so he could take the scents in this room back to school with him. He knows the room would smell like Derek and Pack and home. Stiles is gripping the door jam with white knuckles as he struggles to tamp down the swell of emotion, of pure need that threatens to buckle his knees. He has to get himself under control because he’s in a house full of weres and fuck he does not want to have this conversation with the entire Pack. It’s hard enough to keep secrets from them and this is a big fucking secret that Stiles has not even told Scott—he’s only recently admitted the truth of it to himself. Stiles inhales, shaky and barely contained, when he hears a noise behind him, which means that the noise was made on purpose so he wouldn’t be caught off guard. Stiles doesn’t have to turn around to know who it is.

“Sorry, I was just thinking.” Stiles’s voice sounds wrong, even to his own ears, and he pulls in every stray feeling he’s been leaking and throws up every wall he knows how to build thanks to Deaton’s work with him this summer.

“Everyone’s going to bed.” Derek is closer now, but Stiles keeps his back to him. “Are you staying tonight?”

There are so many questions buried in that phrase that Stiles’s heart aches with the weight of them. Stiles wants to say no because he needs to have this piece of the puzzle before him defined. He’s worried the corners of it for so long the jagged edges are gone—Stiles isn’t sure it would fit into the place it was originally intended to go. In the end, he does the only thing he can.

He stays.

Stiles changes into a pair of worn batman pajama pants and crawls into the king sized bed in Derek’s room. Derek comes out of the bathroom, looking pensive as he walks toward the bed. His eyes flick to the hallway and a small smile plays over his lips. 

Stiles wonders at the source of Derek’s amusement until Derek says, “You can come in.”

Theo, Liam, Mason, and Cora are in the hallway and shuffle in, looking hopeful. Stiles sighs and scoots over, secretly glad to have a buffer between Derek and the feelings Stiles is burying with the efficiency of a drunken gravedigger. In the end, Stiles ends up with Derek on one side and Cora on the other with Liam at his feet. Stiles is warm, and the whirlwind in him slows and stills, calmed by proximity to the Pack. Everyone is safe and warm and sleeps deeply.

Stiles wakes up alone in the big bed. Sun is streaming in the windows and he stretches, shaking out the residual soreness of sleep. There is a padding on the floor and Derek’s black wolf comes into the room carrying Stiles’s running shoes. 

Stiles groans. “It’s too early.” He buries his hand in the wolf’s fur and relents. “One last run before I leave.” 

Stiles takes the shoes and changes. He waves to everyone in the kitchen as they leave the house. No one questions what is happening and Stiles wonders if Derek’s wolf has been making more appearances lately. He’s always fearful of asking, afraid of what the answers will be to his questions.

The run starts out fine. Stiles lets everything drain from his mind, but the things weighing on him don’t stay gone long. Summer is over and he’s headed back to campus today. He’s spent an entire summer here and none of his questions have been answered because he is a coward. Logically, he knows he’s part of the problem, for never bringing it up, never pressing, except once on Fourth of July that night on the Nemeton. A small trickle of anger slides down Stiles’s spine and he’s not even sure where he’s directing the anger, at himself, at Derek, or just at the messed up world.

Derek treats him like he does everyone else in the pack, the same casual touches, the same encouragement. The only thing that’s different is the regular interactions with Derek’s wolf, and Stiles needs to know if he’s going crazy, if his research was wrong, or if he’s built something in his head and heart out of nothing because he wants it desperately to be there. Stiles needs to know if the connection he feels to Derek is part of regular Pack dynamics, his imagination, or something else with weight and gravity. He doesn’t have wolf instincts to guide him—he only has his human brain and human heart and they have led him astray in the past.

The trickle of anger becomes a full fledged river and the wolf glances at him as they round the last bend to the house. Derek has to know, must know what has been building between them for years, and Stiles wants to hear him say it once, one way or the other, so they stop existing in limbo. Rationally, Stiles knows he’s being illogical, but everything’s been festering for too long and he loses control of the release valve of his emotions. Stiles slows to a walk and is suddenly furious.

Stiles stops to catch his breath then looks at the wolf. “What is this?” Stiles points between himself and the wolf. “All fucking summer and for years. You don’t want to talk about this? Why?” Stiles drops to his knees and gets in the wolf’s face. “What does it mean, Derek?” Stiles’s voice breaks over Derek’s name and fissure opens in Stiles’s chest.

The wolf blinks at him and drops its head, but it stays a wolf.

“You’re a coward. I know.  _ I know what it means. _ ” Stiles is shaking, his anger overriding everything else. “At least I acknowledge this exists. Fuck you. I’m done.”

The wolf lifts its head and whines, pitiful and full of pain. 

Stiles makes a chopping motion with his hand. “No, fuck that too. Don't use that face against me. You’re an asshole.”

Stiles stomps inside the house. The pack is in the kitchen, all of them silent and listening as Stiles rushes through the door. Stiles knows they’ve heard everything. Scott’s mouth is pressed into a line and Stiles points at him. “I’ll be at your mom’s house in two hours. If you’re not there, get a ride with someone else.” Most of the younger pack is joining them at school this year—there will be plenty of other people that can give Scott a lift to campus.

Stiles grabs his bag from the green and brown room. He left a shirt in Derek’s room this morning, but he decides to leave it there out of spite. Stiles knows it smells like him and he hopes it rubs a little salt in this wound.  _ Petty, but there it is. _

Stiles stomps out of the house. The wolf is sitting where he left it in the middle of the yard and Stiles pauses, choked by all the things he wants to say, and lays a shaking hand on the wolf’s neck. He curls his hand into the fur there and squeezes the skin and fur in his fist, before letting go and walking to the Jeep. His heart is rabbiting as he starts the Jeep with a roar that is all the louder for the quiet morning it’s interrupted. Stiles’s hands are tight and his arms shake as he drives off the Preserve, but he keeps going, even when he hears the wolf howling in the distance and feels the tug in his chest grow tight. 

Stiles is done ignoring the truth. He knows what it means for a werewolf to come to someone in their wolf form repeatedly, for them to seek companionship and comfort from one person consistently. Stiles knows why he feels tethered to Derek and why being away from him is a physical, not just emotional pain. At some point, Derek’s wolf chose Stiles for its mate and Stiles chose Derek and the wolf right back because there is no universe in which Stiles would not end up completely devoted to Derek, brooding, emotionally stunted werewolf that he is. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter what Derek’s wolf has chosen if Derek doesn’t want Stiles, and Stiles, filled with self-loathing at his own ineffectiveness, rubs the bloom of pain in his chest. Stiles can’t blame Derek for not wanting to be his mate either.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Stiles doesn’t go back to Beacon Hills for Thanksgiving. Scott begs him to come home, to talk to Derek, but Stiles isn’t ready for that. Not yet. Scott tries telling him that Derek is a mess, but Stiles doesn’t believe it. If things were that bad, Derek would text or call himself, but he doesn’t and each day that passes Stiles gets more bitter. 

He convinces his dad to spend Thanksgiving in Seattle with his aunt. While they’re there, Stiles takes the letter Deaton has written him, sealed with wax because Deaton is old fashioned and proper, to the druid enclave north of the city and asks for permission to spend his Winter break there. Stiles needs to be able to care for the Pack better and that means getting better at using his own spark of power. He rubs the pain in his sternum and admits he still wants to make sure he’s not a liability. If he can become something else, a better version of himself, maybe being stuck with him forever will not be so abhorrent to Derek. 

The head druid, a woman with brown hair that’s green on the ends and vines on her arms, real ones that sprout flowers as she talks, welcomes Stiles like a long lost son. The druids teach Stiles as much as he can cram into one month and make him promise to come back once a year. Stiles is able to ask questions he never could about the werewolves, about the unique pack Scott and Derek have built, and about Stiles’s place in it. Stiles also learns more about how werewolves choose mates and how it affects a pack. Deep down, regardless of what Stiles wants, he needs to make sure his pack will be okay no matter the outcome of whatever happens or doesn’t between him and Derek. He spends Winter break in Seattle and he doesn’t go to Beacon Hills at all for almost nine months. 

\---

Derek can pinpoint the moment he lost control of everything. It was the night on the Nemeton, when Stiles asked the question and the words got stuck in Derek’s throat and jumbled in his head until what came out was denial and avoidance. He’s a coward and Stiles is right, he’s an asshole.

At first, he doesn’t text because he wants to give Stiles time to cool off and time to gather his own feelings. Days turned into weeks, and then it’s so hard to just type something innocuous and inane into a text and the thought of actually talking to Stiles on the phone leaves him shaking. 

The Pack comes home for midterm break, but Stiles isn’t with them and that’s when Derek starts to fear he’s broken something he hadn’t even gotten to hold. He wades through that first Stilesless visit and is crushed when it happens again at Thanksgiving and Winter Break. The Pack does its best to be cheerful, but everyone knows what’s missing and no one says his name when Derek’s in the room.

When the younger pack members go back to school for the Spring semester, Derek rattles around the house and spends days doing nothing. At some point, the adults become concerned—Melissa forces him to come over for dinner, Noah invites him over to watch baseball, and Parrish shoves him into the woods to go on runs. Derek appreciates the company, he does, but his chest aches and he’s tired all the time. Noah drops small tidbits of information about how Stiles is doing and Derek savors them like a starving man, but they only increase his awareness of what he’s missing. 

He can’t full shift, no matter how often he tries, and he doesn’t know how to repair the hole in his heart. Derek sleeps with the shirt Stiles left behind, tucked under his chin, even after the smell from it fades. Derek can’t bring himself to wash it.

\---

There’s an ache in Stiles’s chest, persistent and painful, that he’s learned to live with. It eases some when he’s at school, surrounded by Scott, Malia, Liam, Mason, Theo, and Cora, but it never goes away—he can never take a deep breath and there’s a bone deep weariness he can’t shake. Stiles wonders if Derek has the same pain, and if it's worse, like his, on the full moon, when he can barely breathe at all. Then he gets angry all over again and throws himself into his classwork. 

Stiles doesn’t tell any of the Pack about his problems, but he knows they’re worried about him. He sees the sideways looks they give him and they’re even more tactile with him than normal. There are plenty of nights he has an extra pack member in the tiny dorm room he shares with Scott, and most of the time that person ends up sleeping on Stiles’s bed with him. He’s stopped asking them why and just rolls with it because it does make him feel better. 

When the others go home to Beacon Hills, Stiles stays and works on projects and essays and plots his next move. If he notices Scott or Liam stealing one of his shirts before they leave and then returning without it, Stiles never comments on it. He keeps his face blank and hopes Derek feels half as shitty as he does because Stiles is still petty. The semester drags on and he walks in on one too many conversations that cease when he comes in. It bothers him at first, but by the end of the Spring semester Stiles has made some decisions and gives into the pressure from Scott to go home for the summer. Stiles was always going to go home for Summer break, he has a plan to put into motion, but he lets Scott think he won a major victory. 

\---

The day they’re packing up to leave, there’s a knock on the door. Scott stops in the middle of throwing the last of his clothes in a bag and inhales, flaring his nose.

“It’s another wolf.” He smells the air again. “Holy shit.” Scott runs to the door and yanks it open.

Standing in the hallway is a lanky man, whose shoulders have filled in over the last few years, but his mop of curly brown hair is the same and he still has an inexplicable scarf around his neck. 

“Isaac!” Scott wraps the other man in a huge hug, squeezing him tight enough to crack ribs on a human. 

The shock wears off and Stiles wraps his arms around both of them and the three of them stand there like that for a long time. Malia and Cora’s heads poke out of their door from across the hall. Both girls let out a squealing noise and pretty soon they’re all in a pile in the middle of the hall, hugging and running their hands all over each other. Stiles laughs at what his life has become and, for the first time since last summer, a warm feeling fills him. The others find them and they all crowd into Stiles and Scott’s room. 

Isaac sits on Stiles’s bed and Stiles sits next to him with his hand on Isaac’s knee. The others crowd around, finding ways to touch Isaac, to reassure themselves that he is real and to let him know they missed him. 

Stiles gives Isaac’s knee a squeeze. “I thought you were gone for good. How’d you find us?”

Isaac takes a deep breath and looks around the room. “I wasn’t sure what the reception would be.”

Scott plops down on Isaac’s other side and wraps a hand around Isaac’s neck. “You may have been gone, but you’re still ours, still Pack.”

Isaac nods and blinks rapidly. “I’ve been living up north. There’s a druid enclave in Washington,” he pauses and looks at Stiles, “they run a kind of halfway house for weres or other supernatural beings with nowhere else to go, called The Refuge. I ended up there after a year on the road, broke and tired. They took me in. I’ve been there ever since.”

“So you were there over the break? Why didn’t you find me then?” Stiles asks.

“I didn’t know you were there until after you left. The druids like their damn secrets—they’re like Deaton but a hundred times worse.”

Stiles chuckles. “Yeah, I didn’t even know The Refuge existed and I was there for a month.”

“They wouldn’t have told you unless you needed to know. One of the druids told me a new druid from a pack down south had been there to train and he started telling me about this crazy pack with a true alpha, a banshee, a kanima, a coyote, and some humans, and I knew. I knew it was you, Stiles.” Isaac tugged on the end of his scarf. “I had a place there. I helped the new weres who came into The Refuge, but it was never my home.”

“Never Pack,” Scott added.

Isaac nods and tucks his head. “I know I’m the one who left and I have no right to ask, but I want to come home, if I’m allowed.”

Scott shares a look with Stiles and they both smile at each other. Scott is the one who says, “You’ve always been welcome to come back anytime.”

Isaac takes a shaky breath. “What about Derek?”

The name jolts something in Stiles. The others don’t say Derek’s name anymore in front of Stiles and six pairs of eyes snap to him, wide with apprehension. Stiles swallows past the twist of pain that corkscrews through him and pulls Isaac in for another hug. “He’ll be happy to see you. It was hard for him when you left.”

“What if he doesn’t want me there?” Isaac whines at the end of the question.

Stiles looks Issac in the eyes and says, “You leave Derek to me.” Something in the pack relaxes at those words and Stiles desperately hopes he can make good on his promise in more ways than one.

\---

Isaac follows Stiles home and helps him drop off stuff at his house. Stiles has already squared his plans for the summer with his dad and is going to have breakfast with him in the morning, so he doesn’t worry about finding him the moment he gets in town. He has other problems to handle first and a plan to set in motion. A flare of apprehension burns through him and Stiles considers again taking a direct approach to this thing with Derek. Stiles knows though that gentle, persistent subterfuge is the best way. Confronting Derek with words didn’t go so well the last two times he tried it.

Stiles rubs his sternum and thinks about what comes next. He wasn’t sure what the tether would feel like after months away and no contact with Derek, but it’s still there and it’s still strong, a pulsing pain that has lessened with proximity since rolling into Beacon Hills. Even with the distance lessened, Stiles left with too much anger for the bond he has with Derek to be healthy and pain-free. It’s taken Stiles almost nine months, but he has let some of his anger go and he’s ready to move forward, one way or the other. The only unknown is what Derek will do. Stiles plans to make it impossible for the other man to say no this time.

Isaac takes a step and puts an arm around Stiles. “Are you okay? You smell sad but determined and you feel like…”

Isaac pauses and Stiles can’t stand the hesitation, afraid of what Isaac, who’s been away so long that he can see all of this shitty situation with new eyes, would notice. “What? What do I feel like?”

Isaac swallows. “You don’t just feel like the druid for the Pack, Stiles. When you touch me and when the Pack defers to you, you feel like a wolf, like a high ranking pack wolf.”

Stiles’s stomach rolls and he thinks he may be sick, even though the druids told him in strong bonds that was a possibility. Isaac steadies him with a hand on his arm. Stiles rubs his sternum and nods. “I know. You’ll figure it out soon enough. C’mon, this isn’t going to be any easier if I wait.” 

If it’s that obvious, Stiles assumes the rest of the Pack has likely been aware, or at least had an inkling of the problem for some time now. All the hushed conversations, forced outings to cheer him up, and group sleeping gain some subtlety and Stiles wishes desperately that there wouldn’t be an audience if he goes down in flames when his plan fails spectacularly. 

Stiles gets out of the Jeep in front of the Hale House knowing everyone else is already inside and Derek will know he’s here. Isaac is on his heels as they stand and look at the house.

“Wow.”

Stiles throws an arm over Isaac’s shoulders. “I know. Derek and the Pack worked hard on it and now it’s home.”

The house has become, not quite what it was before, it's something else, something that belongs to all of them with its wrap around porch, a swing on one end. The Widow’s Walk on the top has a set of chairs and cushions up top for stargazing. The outside is painted in white and brown with green accents. It looks like it has always been part of the Preserve, and something eases in Stiles as he looks at it. His heart is a steady beat of belonging and home, and Stiles rubs his sternum from habit and less to ease the pain.

The front door opens and Derek steps outside. After months away, the impact of seeing him is a physical blow, and Stiles’s feet stumble. He knows his heart kicks up enough to be noticed, but part of his plan is no longer hiding the way Derek affects him, so he lets it go careening through his chest, every beat screaming emotion. Derek walks down the steps, eyes on Stiles, expression carefully shuttered, but Stiles can feel him through the bond—he knows that Derek is struggling with a wave of relief, joy, and hope at seeing him. Stiles knows because there is no way he couldn’t and it gives him hope. 

Stiles closes some of the distance between them and reaches out to run a hand down the side of Derek’s face. Stiles isn’t holding back anymore, but his plan also requires patience and slow movements in the right direction. Wolves can scare just as easily as rabbits, and Stiles wants this time to be different. Stiles turns to look at Isaac, whose eyes dart between Derek and Stiles, understanding blooming in his wide brown eyes. Everyone knows but no one says anything about it. That’s going to stop soon too, Stiles promises himself.

Derek’s body gives a visible jerk as he registers who is standing beside Stiles. “Isaac?” It’s a testament to how far Derek has come since Isaac left, that Derek doesn’t even hesitate. He steps past Stiles and wraps Isaac in a hug that lifts the other man off his feet, before putting him down and running his hands over the other wolf, smelling him and using all his senses to make sure he is whole and healthy and here. Even without his connection to Derek, Stiles can see the emotion in Derek’s eyes and Stiles’s already bruised and painful heart stutters with the tenderness of the moment. 

Stiles leaves the two to become reacquainted and grabs his stuff out of the Jeep. He leaves the back open for Isaac and walks into the house. The rest of the Pack is already there, lounging across furniture in the living room and raiding the kitchen. The only people missing now are Lydia, who will fly in tomorrow, and the adults, and join them for a BBQ tomorrow. Stiles chuckles as he goes up the stairs, two at a time, at referring to his dad, Melissa, Chris, and Parish as the adults, even though all of them are technically adults now. The parents and Parrish, are adultier adults. Stiles goes into the brown and green room, the one that is right next to Derek’s, and claims the bed that he’ll be occupying until he convinces Derek otherwise.

He goes back downstairs just as Isaac and Derek are coming in. “Isaac, there’s still a bed in the last bedroom on the right if you want to join me.” Stiles winks at him and adds, “I don’t snore. I don’t think.”

“You don’t.” Scott yells from the kitchen. “You do talk in your sleep though.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Stiles smiles at Derek as he replies to Scott, has to work at making it casual and hopes he succeeds, as Stiles walks around Derek and joins Scott, Malia, and Cora in the kitchen. “What’re we making tonight?” Stiles can feel Derek following him, and Stiles winks at Scott. 

Scott gives him his signature boyish grin and Stiles gives into the urge to ruffle his hand through Scott’s hair. One of the benefits of being in a pack of weres, Stiles can give into all his tactile urges and it’s not weird.

“I bought stuff for spaghetti and meatballs.” Derek’s voice is right over Stiles’s shoulder and Stiles can feel the timbre of Derek’s voice in his bones. He’d forgotten what it felt like on his skin and the time away has made Stiles more sensitive to it.

Stiles twirls around, putting him dangerously close to Derek, but that’s part of the plan. “Are we making the meatballs from scratch?” Perfectly normal question delivered in a perfectly normal tone that Stiles is immensely pleased about.

“I already made the meatballs. I was waiting for everyone to come home.”

He was anxious and impatient all day and needed something to do with his hands, Stiles heard the words Derek didn’t say. Even if Stiles didn’t know Derek, he’d felt the emotions through their connection all day. They were a mirror to his own. Derek isn’t great with his emotions, but making Derek more verbal about feelings is a key part of Stiles’s plan too. 

Stiles smiles at Derek and says, “They’re my favorite.”

Derek blinks at him. “I didn’t know you were coming home with everyone else.” He swallows and adds, “I hoped you would.”

Stiles wants to crow over that small victory, but instead he rewards Derek’s confession by wrapping Derek in the hug he’d been denied earlier. There’s no hesitation as Derek returns Stiles’s embrace, and Stiles melts into Derek. 

_ God, it’s like coming home. _ The thought roars through him and Stiles knows he’s been right for a long time. The pain in his chest eases for the first time in nine months, and Stiles draws a breath without feeling the pinch and strain of his connection with Derek now that the proximity problem has been fixed and things feel better. Now, Stiles just has to fix all the other, longer-term problems. 

“I wouldn’t skip coming home for the summer for anything,” Stiles says into the space by Derek’s ear.

Derek trembles briefly against him before letting Stiles go. There is a slightly dazed look on Derek’s face and Stiles simply smiles at him and runs his hands down Derek’s arms as he takes a step back. Stiles hasn’t been angry at Derek in weeks, his anger has been replaced by gritty determination, but Derek is still looking pensive, like Stiles is going to start yelling at him any minute.

Step one in Stiles’s plan: trying to use his words and getting Derek to do the same.

With that directive in mind, Stiles says, “I’m sorry I called you an asshole when I left.”

Everyone in the kitchen, and probably the rest of the house, stops what they’re doing to listen.

Derek’s eyes look around the room, then back at Stiles. He starts and stops a couple sentences before he says, “I’m sorry I never called.”

Jackson breezes into the kitchen, a glint in his eyes. “Have the dads made up yet?”

Stiles gives Jackson a death glare,  _ What is it with that man’s timing? _ and reaches out to wrap Derek’s wrist in his fingers and squeezes before letting go.

Dinner is raucous and Stiles claims the chair by Derek that everyone leaves open. Stiles bumps his feet up against Derek’s under the table and everything feels tender and new but old at the same time. They linger over the meal and Stiles knows this is how the Pack should always be. He catches Derek looking at him a handful of times, and each time Stiles just smiles at him knowingly. Stiles wasn’t sure what his reception would be, but it’s better than he anticipated. Derek knows how to hold a grudge and a part of Stiles had been worried Derek had been nursing bitterness for Stiles instead of something else. Stiles can definitely work with the soulful glances he’s been getting all evening, but reminds himself slow and steady are important to his plan.

The Pack is settling into the living room, getting ready to watch The Princess Bride, as Stiles and Scott put away the last of the dishes. Stiles steals himself and asks, “I need to go check the wards to see what changes should be made. Will you come with me?”

Scott levels a look at him. “Me? Are you sure you don’t want to ask someone else?” he asks, sliding his eyes towards Derek.

“It won’t take long. We’ll be back before the ROUSes.” Stiles uses his firm voice and gives his friend a meaningful look.

Scott gives in, as Stiles knew he would, and the two of them head out the door. Stiles is silent as he walks with Scott. They only need to get far enough to get out of the range of werewolf hearing. Stiles finds a fallen log and sits down, patting the space beside him. 

Scott sits with a sigh. “Stiles, what’re we doing out here?”

“How long have you known? And don’t play dumb about what I’m asking.”

Scott rubs the back of his neck and looks anywhere but at Stiles. “Since last summer. Then you started asking me questions and I put the pieces together. I can solve mysteries occasionally too, you know. Plus, you feel like each other. The others took a little longer to figure out something was different than just Pack bonds between you and Derek.”

“You mean they didn’t notice until it all went to shit?”

Scott nods. “Why are you bringing this up now? Why not when we were at school?”

“I wasn’t completely sure until recently what I was going to do.” Stiles wraps his hand around Scott’s forearm. “I might need your help, everyone’s actually.”

“Anything you need.”

_ God bless Scott and his loyalty. _ “I’m going to woo a werewolf.” Stiles laughs nervously.

Scott lets out a breath. “Thank God. Stiles, this has all been...”

“I know.” Stiles squeezes Scott’s arm. “I know, but the Pack can’t keep functioning if Derek and I don’t figure out whatever this is, one way or another.”

“What do you need?”

“I need the pack to not push too hard. I don’t know if you noticed, but Derek’s bad at using his words and articulating his feelings, especially when he’s cornered.”

Scott starts laughing and then Stiles starts laughing and it is all very silly. Stiles’s laughter is abruptly cut off when he feels a moment of panic through his bond with Derek. They hadn’t told everyone they were leaving and Stiles can almost sense Derek thinking Stiles had left again. 

“We’re about to be interrupted,” Stiles says as he closes his eyes and concentrates, pushing reassurance and comfort into the bond and hoping Derek gets the message. It’s not something Stiles has ever tried, but the druids assured him it was one of the things that could be done. The fear eases, but the prickling anxiety is still there, coming closer. 

Stiles opens his eyes and leans in close to Scott. “They can push a little, but not too much. Let them know they need to leave most of it to me. I promise to ask for help when I need it. Please.”

Scott nods. “Of course, I’ll let them know.”

They both stand as Derek comes into the clearing, a little wide eyed and looking like he’s not sure how he got there.

Scott gives Stiles a thumbs up and walks back to the house. Stiles takes his time approaching Derek and slides his hand down Derek’s arm. “I’m not leaving.”

“I didn’t think…” Derek starts and stops as Stiles raises an eyebrow at him.

“C’mon. We’re going to miss the movie and I know you love it.” Stiles drags Derek back to the house, shoves him gently onto the floor so that Derek is leaning up against the couch, and burrows himself into Derek’s side. 

At the end of the movie, everyone piles into Derek’s room and tangles on the bed and furniture. Stiles falls asleep with a smile on his face and his hand wrapped around Derek’s wrist.

\---

Stiles expects to wake up in an empty bed, but Isaac, Theo, and Liam are still sprawled on the bed whispering. The pack took Isaac back in as though he’d never been gone, and Stiles is more pleased than he’d like to admit. He rolls over and yawns as he stretches. He hasn’t slept this good in ages. 

“Morning, sleepy head,” Liam says running a finger down the middle of Stiles’s foot.

Stiles jerks his body away from Liam and his offending finger. “No tickling early in the morning. That’s not fair.” 

Stiles looks around Derek’s room looking for subtle differences, anything to tell him what Derek has been up to since Stiles stomped off the Preserve. There is a picture of the Pack from last Fourth of July on the wall, printed large and framed, and the wave of emotions looking at the faces in that picture catch Stiles off guard. 

The three wolves on the bed with him stop talking and Isaac wraps a hand around Stiles’s ankle. “Are you okay?” Isaac asks.

Stiles nods. “Yeah, I just—It’s been a while and I missed being home more than I thought.”

Isaac squeezes his hand around Stiles then lets go. His blue eyes are soft with understanding. The three wolves swivel their eyes to the door, and Stiles knows the moment before he enters that Derek has been in the hallway. He comes into the room in a pair of basketball shorts and a soft t-shirt, and Stiles thinks no one should be able to look that good so early in the morning. 

Derek shifts his weight and looks at Stiles, and Stiles feels pinned. “I’m going for a run. Do you want to come?”

_ This is a nice change _ , Stiles thinks.

“I’d like to go,” Liam says.

Theo punches Liam in the diaphragm and Liam struggles to breathe. Both of the wolves glare at each other. Theo says, “Liam and I are going to run this afternoon.”

Isaac is shaking with laughter and Stiles rolls his eyes.  _ Subtlety is not a werewolf’s best attribute, bless them. _

Liam nods when he catches his breath. “Yep, later. Do I smell pancakes?”

Liam, Theo, and Isaac scramble off the bed in record speed and vacate the room. Stiles smiles at Derek. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

Derek’s expression is neutral as he nods and leaves. Stiles flops back on the bed and steels himself. It’s going to be a long summer, but he can do this and by this he means outsmart a grumpy werewolf into having some feelings.

Derek doesn’t say anything and Stiles follows him through the Preserve, down the trails they’ve run hundreds of times, past trees and over ravines that Stiles could navigate with his eyes closed. They stop and walk after four miles because Stiles needs a breather. 

“Thank you for bringing Isaac home.”

It’s not what Stiles expects him to open with. “I’m just as happy as you are.”

“He told me that the druids told him about you.”

Stiles nods, waiting.

“Will you tell me about the enclave?”

“What do you want to know?”

Derek pauses then looks at the path ahead and replies, “Whatever you want to share.”

Stiles steals a sideways glance at Derek then launches into a dramatic retelling of every funny anecdote he can think of, trying to get Derek to smile. Every time Stiles succeeds, the tightness in his body eases a bit more. Out of habit more than anything else, Stiles rubs at his sternum while recounting some of the things the druids taught him while he was there. Derek catches the movement and Stiles can feel a fissure of emotion through their bond, but keeps talking.

“I had a fairly good idea about wards, but they showed me how to build ours so that they can’t be dismantled or broken. I also learned some fun poisons that I’m dying to try.” Stiles waves his hands as Derek gives him an incredulous look with one eyebrow raised. “Not that I’m asking for the Monster of the Week, but some of them are wicked. Remember that bat I made last year? They taught me how to spell weapons that aren’t mine specifically, so I can do some mojo for Dad or Chris. I know Melissa’s been practicing with a crossbow, thanks to Chris, so I could figure out something for her arrows too.” Stiles rattles off a few more useful things, healing and barrier spells— he needs Derek to know that he’s learning things that benefit the pack, that he’s pulling his weight. 

Being useful is the anchor of his plan that involves being honest with his feelings and not pushing too hard, but still moving forward. Stiles knows he may not have many other things to recommend him, but he wants to be worthy of his Pack, of Derek, and this is the only way he knows how to do it. Some of his anxiety must have leaked through the bond, because Derek stops on the edge of the woods by the house. They’re in almost the same spot where Stiles yelled at him months ago and Stiles feels a pain at the time they’ve lost.

Derek wraps a hand around the back of Stiles’s neck. “Stiles, what’s wrong?”

Stiles takes a deep breath and reminds himself that honesty is part of the plan even though at the moment, he thinks the plan sucks. “I’m a little anxious.”

“I know. Why?”

Derek is too close and Stiles is having trouble stringing words together that make sense because all he can really think about is how much he missed Derek’s face and his hands and his voice. He missed everything. “I wanted you to know that I haven’t been wasting the last nine months. I’ve been learning things, becoming more useful, less of a liability.”

Derek pulls Stiles a little closer and Stiles doesn’t need his connection to Derek to know that his response has irritated the other man. “Is that what you think you are?”

“Squishy human here and nothing else.” Stiles runs his hand suggestively down his body, trying for humor, but failing. “Everyone’s tried to cut off a piece of this but I must be extra lucky, the druids said sometimes magic is like that, but yes, I’m tired of being the one that everyone has to protect or save.”

Derek barks a short laugh. “You’re far from needing protection. I’ve seen you with that bat and I know you can hit a target with a gun almost as often as Chris, except you are much more cold-blooded about it.”

“Wow, not sure that's a compliment.” Stiles grins wide as he says it, leaning into this banter that makes him over the top happy.

“Stiles, you don’t have anything to prove.”

“I know I do. C’mon, we should get back to the house before those monsters scarf down all the pancakes. I’m having breakfast with Dad, but you should eat.”

They walk back to the house and Stiles is running the conversation over in his head because there seems to be some piece he’s missing.  _ If Derek doesn’t think he’s a liability, then why is he avoiding talking about or acknowledging the existence of their mating bond under any and all circumstances?  _

Stiles can’t stop worrying at the question until the meat of it slams into him and his hand goes to his chest as the pain of the truth slices through him. Stiles can’t believe he’s never seen it before and his unwillingness to see it hurts just as much as the revelation of it. It’s not that Derek doesn’t want to be mated with Stiles because Stiles is human, it’s because Derek doesn’t want to be partnered with  _ Stiles. _ Stiles almost stumbles under the weight of that. He’s not sure why that little explosive truth never occurred to him before. Derek grabs Stiles’s arm before Stiles trips again and the pressure of Derek’s hand is both a comfort and so painful Stiles hisses. Stiles shakes off Derek’s hand—knows the werewolf lets him do it—and escapes into the house. 

“Stiles,” Derek calls, but Stiles slams the door behind him. 

The pack is still eating in the kitchen, but they are all still and alert, staring at Stiles as he comes inside. Vertigo and deja vu have Stiles leaning his hand against the wall. 

Cora clears her throat and says, “I saved you some bacon, Red. Do you want it?”

Stiles shakes his head, willing the black spots on the edges of his vision to fade. He has to get upstairs before he has a full blown panic attack in front of a room full of weres. He sucks in some air and the spots recede enough for him to speak. “I’m meeting my dad for breakfast. Thanks.” 

The door behind him opens and Stiles starts to try to push the pain of the morning into a box where it can’t rip him to shreds, but he’s promised himself he’ll be honest with himself and everyone else. Stiles let’s go and leaks his feelings everywhere, leaving a wake of sorrow and despair to move out in ripples behind him as he escapes upstairs. 

Stiles makes it to the shower where he quietly falls apart and reassesses his plans for the summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's going to get better. Thanks for following along.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

As soon as the shower starts, Cora rounds on Derek, spatula in her hand. “What the hell did you say to him, Derek?”

“Do you realize how hard it was to get him here at all?” Scott’s voice is harder than normal and Derek can see the red in Scott’s eyes.

Derek leans against the island, head down, afraid to look at anyone.  _ Fuck me, I can’t do anything right _ , he thinks.

Scott takes pity on him. “Everyone out, take your plates to the porch.” No one argues and everyone scrambles to obey. Cora starts to leave but Scott waves at her. “You can stay. Finish making the pancakes.”

Derek runs his fingers through his hair. “He was telling me all the things he learned the last few months and how he didn’t want to be a liability to the pack anymore. That he wanted to be useful. I told him he hasn’t been a liability for a long time.”

Scott and Cora share a look and they both roll their eyes. “Brother, you’re an idiot.”

“How? I gave him a compliment, told him he was valuable to the Pack,” Derek growls.  _ Why did he feel ten steps behind in every damn conversation? _

Scott takes a step toward him and wraps his hand around Derek’s neck at the same time that Cora wraps an arm around Derek’s waist. “Stiles knows he’s important to the Pack. He doesn’t know he’s important to  _ you _ ,” Cora says.

Derek sputters, “How could he not know?”

“Because you won’t fucking talk to him about it.” Scott didn’t yell but he might as well have - the words tear through Derek.

Scott is right. Derek swallows. “I can’t.” If Derek lays it all on the table, he knows with a bone deep certainty Stiles will go all in and nothing scares Derek more than Stiles being tethered to him instead of having the choice of something better. Derek tentatively feels the edges of his bond with Stiles and what he feels pulsing through it is enough to make him lean into Scott. It’s jagged pain and tearing grief made manifest. 

Scott moves so that he’s facing Derek. “I’m only going to say this one time. Get your shit together. This is tearing apart the Pack and you’re too blind to see it. Stiles knows. It’s why we went and talked last night.”

Derek hears Stiles coming down the stairs, slow and cautious, and he doesn’t need the connection to know that Stiles is in control of himself, but he reeks of grief. Derek forces himself to be still because his first instinct is always to go to Stiles. At this point, denying that need is second nature.

_ And that’s the problem. _ Derek knows, but he doesn’t move.

“Where’d everyone go?” Stiles asks, hair still wet and a pinkish glow on his skin from the heat of the shower, and Derek thinks he’s never seen anything as enticing as the man hovering in the doorway. 

Cora goes back to the griddle and flips the last of the pancakes onto a plate. “They’re outside on the porch. They decided it was too nice to eat inside.” 

Stiles hesitates, eyes swinging between the three of them. Derek can hear the buzz of questions rattling through Stiles, can feel them if he allows himself to. 

Scott gets impatient and flashes his red eyes at Stiles, “Go have breakfast with your dad. Tell him we’ll see him later today. The three of us are just finishing up a conversation.”

Stiles doesn’t move right away and Scott flashes his eyes at Stiles again, but Stiles rolls his eyes and says, “Fine, I’m going. You can’t alpha me into doing stuff, but I know when I’m not wanted.” As soon as the words are out of Stiles’s mouth, he pales and a sharp sensation radiates out from Derek’s chest, where the bond with Stiles is rooted. The pain is harsh and Derek presses a hand to his breastbone. Stiles doesn’t look up again, but sneaks out of the house, closing the door silently behind him. 

Derek leans on the counter with both hands. His heart feels like it’s been chewed up and spit out and he knows that he did that to Stiles. He did. Stiles, who Derek has only ever wanted to protect. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Derek admits, quiet and low.

Cora runs a hand down his arm. “You need to decide what you want and either move forward together or figure out a way to move forward separately, but you need to do something. Scott’s right. This is going to tear the pack in two if you keep this up, they’re going to feel like they have to choose.”

Derek feels ill. He never seems to make the right choice, even when he makes decisions he thinks are the best for everyone. “I need some time.”

“Don’t take too long. I think you’re running out of chances.”

\---

That night, Isaac leaves his bed and slides into Stiles’s full size bed. Theo and Liam, who share a room down the hall, sneak in sometime around midnight and curl up in Isaac’s now empty bed. Stiles is grateful for the balm the company provides on his emotions that feel like someone took a carving knife, then a cheese grater to them. As if there is some unspoken agreement, a different pack member, or two, join Stiles each night as the week goes on. It helps, but the trickle of comfort can’t keep up with the raging river in the chasm inside him. Derek makes himself scarce, and, even though they're in the same house, Stiles almost never sees him. Everything Stiles planned for the summer seems ridiculous in the face of the revelation that Derek doesn’t want him.

On Friday, Stiles decides he has wallowed enough. No matter what, the pack needs protection and that means he needs to start working on resetting the wards and boundaries. He gets a bit of hair from everyone and works on the wording of the spells that will most suit their needs. Jackson takes the scissors from Stiles and snips a patch of his leg hair. Stiles rolls his eyes and accepts it as they both smirk at each other before breaking into laughter. Everything eases for thoses few seconds and Stiles thinks maybe he’ll be okay.

“The kind of hair doesn’t matter,” Stiles tells him.

Not to be outdone, Theo unzips his pants, much to everyone but Liam’s dismay, and clips a pinch of hair from an area that Stiles definitely did not need to see. Theo drops the hair into the bag Stiles is holding and the three of them start laughing again. 

“I hate all of you,” Stiles says but his voice is soft as he rolls his eyes. When he leaves the three of them, he runs his hands down their arms and they lean into his touch.  _ No matter what happens between me and Derek, this Pack is still mine and I am theirs _ , Stiles thinks as he braces himself for the last person he needs to see.

Stiles saves Derek for last because Stiles is a coward and he’s been avoiding Derek as much as Derek has been avoiding him. Stiles stands in the middle of the kitchen and opens himself up to the bond, the wave of emotion is a weight, but he follows the pull to the doors of the study, knocks, and goes in without waiting for permission.

The only light in the room is through the bay window on the west wall, which has a cushioned bench built into it for reading. Stiles expected to find Derek there reading, but the room, thrown into sunset orange and red, looks cosy and empty. Stiles sweeps the room, certain Derek is here, and follows his gut to the desk that is perpendicular to one end of the window. Curled up underneath the desk, with his nose covered by his tail, is a large black wolf that Stiles hasn’t seen for months. The sight of it breaks the fragile cardboard walls Stiles has built over the last week and he makes a pained sound as he drops to his knees beside the wolf. Stiles runs his hands through its fur, everything raw and on the surface inside him. The wolf lifts his head and licks the tears streaming down Stiles’s face.

Stiles allows himself another minute to break down before pulling himself together, piece by ragged piece, and wedging himself under the desk with the wolf. They curl around each other and, while the ache of sorrow is still there, Stiles feels the peace of home and safety and pack that he’s been missing for so long. Derek, in his human form, may not want Stiles, but this form always has and Stiles hopes this, at least, won’t change. Stiles closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

The room is pitch black when Stiles wakes up. He can still feel the wolf underneath his head and he sighs with contentment. He feels better rested than he has in months, nine to be exact, and he stretches as he considers what to do next. Stiles sits up and swivels to face the wolf, but he can’t see anything, so he reaches up and presses the button on the base of the brass lamp on the desk. The light is glaring and Stiles blinks quickly to acclimate to the light before settling back down in front of the wolf.

Stiles sucks in his bottom lip and says in a smooth tone, “I need a clipping of your fur. That’s actually why I came looking for you. Well,” Stiles makes a waving motion, “not this you, but some form of you.”

Stiles rubs his hands methodically down the wolf’s back, then takes a small clipping of hair, adding it to the pouch in his pocket. “This part is always so easy. You know the common denominator to things going incredibly to shit is you in your human form.”

The wolf growls at Stiles and Stiles laughs. “Don't worry, I know I share some of the blame.” Stiles rubs the wolf vigorously between his ears. “You don’t have the corner on asshole.”

Stiles considers what he needs most to say while he has this chance. “Can I ask you a favor though?”

The wolf tilts his head, listening. “Can you please stop avoiding me?” Stiles’s voice wobbles but he plunges ahead. “I know you don’t want…”  _ Me, us, whatever this is _ , but Stiles doesn’t say it out loud, terrified of giving those words power out in the open where they can do even more damage than they currently are locked tight in what’s left of his heart. “Just, please, don’t avoid me completely.”

The wolf licks Stiles and Stiles takes that as an assent.

That night, Stiles is joined in his bed by a large black wolf and there is a small spark of hope that Stiles can’t quelch even though he feels foolish for it.

The next morning, Stiles gets up and heads downstairs. Cora is pulling muffins from the oven and Theo, Liam, and Isaac are pretending not to be hovering in the living room waiting for them to be done. 

Stiles sniffs the air. “Are those blueberry? My favorite.”

Cora pulls one out of the pan and puts in front of Stiles. “I know.” She smiles at Stiles, then looks over his shoulder and puts three more muffins on plates just as Theo, Liam, and Isaac saunter into the kitchen.

They sit down but leave the stool next to Stiles open and Stiles is about to ask why when Derek walks into the kitchen. Stiles can feel him hovering behind him.  _ No time like right now to start behaving like adults in the same family. _ Stiles pats the empty stool beside him and Derek looks at Cora.

“Can I have a muffin?” he asks.

Cora glares at him and says, “You have to wait until the next batch.” There’s a half full pan of perfectly baked muffins behind her and Derek narrows his eyes at them.

Stiles rolls his eyes and slides his plate over to Derek. “Cora, can I have another muffin, please?”

Derek smirks at Cora, who frowns back, but smiles at Stiles. “You’re too soft, Red.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I seem to recall that the wolf in that story ends up being chopped up by an ax.” Stiles gives her a vicious grin and Cora doubles over laughing, then gives each of them another muffin. 

“I’m going to do the wards today. Wanna come?” Stiles asks Cora around bites of muffin.

Cora nods. “I need to clean up then I’d love to.” 

Derek turns his head to look at Stiles and Stiles ignores him. He needs some distance after yesterday to consider what he is going to do about Derek and their bond that only one of them wants. He has an idea, but he needs to mull it around and he won’t be able to think straight if Derek is on his heels all day.

“Great.” Stiles eats his muffins and goes to pack a backpack full of what they’ll need for the day.

Stiles leads them to the Nemeton first, Cora walking beside him, occasionally brushing her arm with his as if to say,  _ I’m here. All is well. _ He talks as he walks because the silence gives him too much time to think and Stiles needs to fill it. 

“I confirmed with the Washington enclave that if I continue to do good druid magic on the Nemeton, it should get better over time. They said that since I have a special relationship,” Stiles make air quotes, “and that still creeps me out a bit, not gonna lie, that it might take me less time to bend it over to the light side of the force, than say Deaton, for example.”

The sprawling trunk of the Nemeton takes up the center of the clearing. A memory beats at Stiles, of him and Derek laying on the surface of the trunk and looking at the stars, and Stiles has to force himself to breathe and swallow past the thickness in his throat. Cora reaches between them and wraps Stiles in a hug. Stiles leans into the comfort she offers, takes a breath, then climbs on top of the trunk. Cora leans against a tree in the clearing, tracking Stiles with her eyes.

Stiles pulls a pouch handsewn from three fabrics from the pocket of his backpack. Stiles runs his fingers over the slightly sloping stitches. He’ll get better with some practice. Sewing takes a lot of patience and sitting still, both are things that Stiles struggles with. “The packaging is just as important as the inside. This little bundle is sewn from three materials—a cut from an article of clothing from Derek, Scott, and myself—one for the alpha, one for the Hale who links the Pack to the generations who’ve lived here before, and one for me as pack druid. We protect the Pack so we make up the container for the spell. Inside is a snip of hair from each pack member. This spell will give the Pack extra protection when they’re in our territory. The next spell I do will define our boundaries and wards. This one though, this one will be the heart of what keeps us safe.”

The bundle goes right in the center of the Nemeton, over the first ring the tree ever made when it was young and new. Stiles recites the spell he wrote and memorized yesterday. There’s a pull in his middle as his magic wakes to the words and when he utters the last word of the spell, the pouch is engulfed in green flames.

Stiles looks up. Cora has a look of awe on her face and Stiles winks at her.

Cora pushes herself off the tree. “What’s next, Red?”

“Now, we’re going to walk as much of the perimeter of our immediate territory as we can. I know our territory is miles wider than the Preserve, but we need to make a fairly large circle around the house and then I can push that perimeter out to the very edges. I’ll have to pause and do a thing every once in a while, but it’s nothing too big. We’re just going for a nice, leisurely walk in the woods.”

“You know, leisurely walks in the woods are how a lot of horror movies start out.”

“Well, good thing we already know where all the monsters are.”

“The worst one is probably in the study brooding that you didn’t ask him to come along.” Cora is teasing but her eyes are serious.

The dirt seems to tilt a little under Stiles and he sways enough that he reaches out to grab Cora’s arm to steady himself. “He doesn’t really want to be here with me. I thought it would be easier if I didn’t put him in the position to have to tell me no.”

Cora looks like she wants to say something, but she clenches her teeth for a moment before replying. “You’re both idiots.”

Stiles laughs, but there is little humor in the sound. “Not gonna argue. Let’s get the rest of this show on the road.”

Stiles lays a hand on the Nemeton, closes his eyes and recites the warding spells as his fingers trace runes on the trunk, pushing his power into the runes. Cora follows Stiles for about a quarter of a mile, then he stops and repeats the gesture on another, more ordinary tree. Neither of them say anything for another mile, Stiles stopping every quarter mile to repeat the ritual. Stiles continues along the path that they use when they do perimeter runs. 

By midafternoon, Stiles’s feet are heavy and he has trouble with the last rune. He’s starting to feel a little fuzzy on the edges which only happens when he’s done too much magic in one day, but he’s almost done, only another mile to go. It doesn’t matter that Derek doesn’t want him, the Pack still needs Stiles and this is the thing he can do to keep them all safe. Stiles grits his teeth and keeps going.

Stiles presses his forehead against the trunk of the last tree and wishes he didn’t feel so drained by the magic he’s been pouring out all day. He feels open and exposed.

Cora’s hand is warm on his neck. “Are you okay?”

He pulls in a breath. “Yes, I need to push out the boundaries of the wards, then, I’m done.” Stiles kneels and opens himself to the Preserve, pulling power from all the life there to connect it to the Pack and the Pack to it. He can see the barrier of the circle in his mind, then he pushes it out, encompassing miles and miles of territory. The moment it reaches the Pack’s boundary the spell snaps into place with a click and Stiles can feel the flare of power that runs through him like wind through the trees. The spell fades and Stiles can’t help but look up at Cora with a wide smile on his face. 

“You’re glowing green. That was impressive.” She offers him her hand and he takes it, knowing he doesn’t have enough energy to stand on his own. Stiles ways on his feet and Cora wraps her arm around his shoulder. “Whoa, there. How were you expecting to get back to the house?”

Cora starts walking them back and Stiles’s feet barely shuffle him forward. “To be honest, I’ve never done this before. I didn’t know it would take so much from me.”

“Your eyes are still green, but you look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks. You’re welcome, for protecting your ass, by the way.”

Cora rolls her eyes. “Let’s get you back.”

When they come out of the trees, Scott is standing on the porch waiting for them and Derek is pacing on the grass in front of the house. The moment Stiles sees them, he straightens up and tries to pull away from Cora. 

She holds onto him. “Oh no you don’t. No way are you going to act that stupid. I’m helping you into the house.”

Derek’s eyes are pools of concern and anxiety and Stiles can’t look at him, can’t take the chance that he will reveal something he shouldn’t when he’s been worn raw by magic. Derek rushes to meet them and takes Stiles’s other arm. His touch is warm and gentle and Stiles wants to weep for it, knows the touch is the same as it would be for anyone else in the pack and knows he’s too damn tired to cover the surge of ache and want Derek’s touch triggers.

Derek’s grip tightens on Stiles and Cora whines in the back of her throat. 

Scott steps off the porch. “What happened?”

“I finished all the wards for the Preserve. Just took a little more juice than I thought it would.” Stiles tries to give Scott a smile but Derek is still holding on to him and Stiles feels like he might die of heartbreak.

“I’m calling Deaton. You two take him upstairs.” Scott takes out his phone and starts dialing. 

Normally, Stiles would protest, but he spent a long time today thinking and he needs Deaton for what he has to do next. A wave of grief crashes over him and Stiles tries to stand up on his own, even as Derek and Cora both increase their hold on him.

“What did you do to him?” Derek asks.

Cora’s face contorts in what Stiles can only label rage. “What did I do? Are you shitting me right now?”

“You were the one with him all day.”

“You’re the one forcing him to push himself like this.” Cora yells back, a growl on the end of her words.

Stiles can’t do this now. “Children. I’m tired. Can you let me go so I can go crawl into a bed or can you two shut up and help me upstairs?”

Derek growls at Cora and sweeps Stiles into bridal carry, which Stiles would normally complain about, but his exhaustion has reached bone numbing proportions. He takes advantage of the position he’s in and soaks in the feel of Derek’s chest beneath his cheek. If all goes according to Stiles’s plan, it may be a long time before Derek feels compelled to take care of him this way.

Derek walks past Stiles’s room and lays him gently on the bed in Derek’s room. “Derek, I have my own bed.”

The only response he gets is a scowl, so Stiles sighs and toes off his shoes. “Would you mind getting me some water?”

Derek nods and leaves, and Stiles uses the reprieve to gather his courage for what he has to do next. 

\---

“I do not think this is a wise course of action, especially without his consent.” Deaton’s face and voice are neutral but Stiles has learned to read the druid and knows he is truly concerned.

“I can’t do this anymore. It’s better if I sever it. It’s possible, isn’t it? The spell I have there will do it?” Stiles and Deaton are speaking in vague terms in case any of the wolves are listening.

Deaton looks at the paper Stiles handed him and shakes his head. “This spell will mute it so that it will be indistinguishable from other Pack bonds.”

Stiles closes his eyes, the enormity of what he’s about to do gouging into him. “It’s not fair to…” he almost says Derek then corrects himself. “It’s not fair for it to be one-sided and I can’t keep doing this. It’s eating away at me. This is for the best.”

“It can be reversed, you built in a failsafe, but requires intent from both parties.”

Stiles blinks rapidly to keep from crying. “I won’t need it though.”

“If you’re sure then.”

Stiles nods. “I am.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Derek is leaning against the v of the counter by the stove, trying to listen to Deaton and Stiles talk. He is physically holding onto the counter to keep himself from going upstairs. Stiles made it clear this morning when he didn’t want Derek around and Derek has done so few things well with Stiles, he’s determined to respect Stiles’s wishes. The lacerations of pain that have been flaying him since Stiles returned are harder to ignore. 

When Stiles had returned a week ago, Derek had been filled with some bright emotion that had to be hope, but in epic fashion, he had trampled on what little promise he’d had with Stiles. He’s replayed the few conversations they’ve had this week over and over in his head and he doesn’t understand what he did wrong. His inability to understand is eating him from the inside out. 

In Derek’s deepest place, he knows it may be better if Stiles figures out how broken Derek is now and what a terrible mate he’d make over the long haul. Derek has done well with the pack, can feel the warmth of pride when he thinks about how he’s helped Scott build something on the land his family held for so long, but he knows all his romantic relationships have ended in flames, sometimes literally. So Derek stays in the kitchen, when what he wants to do is wrap Stiles up and roll around in bed all day with him.

Cora and Scott are in the kitchen with him. Cora presses a mug of something warm, Earl Grey with lavender by the smell of it, into his hand. She stays next to him as he holds the mug and sips it gingerly, trying to steady himself for whatever comes next, and Derek knows there's always a next.

He’s not sure what it is at first. He feels a wave of grief through his bond with Stiles, which isn’t that far out of the ordinary this past year, but the pain is sharper. Derek’s hand shakes and he looks at his chest, the feeling of something physically cutting him is so strong he expects to see a knife there.

“Derek, what’s wrong?” Cora’s eyes are wide and panicked.

“I don’t know,” he manages to say, before his entire chest goes numb and he drops the mug in his hands. Scalding tea and ceramic pieces go everywhere as the mug crashes to the floor, but Derek is numb, numb everywhere as his bond with Stiles fades then disappears. 

Scott jumps up from the table to help clean up and Derek takes a breath and in a rush all the other sensations come back. He can feel the heat of the tea on his bare feet. He can smell the tea as it spreads over the tile mixed with the scent of worry from both Cora and Scott. There isn’t anything else though. There’s no Stiles. There’s nothing, and acid dread and fear claw at his throat. 

Derek runs over the broken mug, doesn’t register the pain in his foot or the blood he’s leaving on the floor, and flies towards his bedroom, sure that he’ll arrive too late and Stiles will be dead, fragile made of steel, Stiles. Derek throws himself into his room, chest heaving and fear threatening to drown him and sees Stiles, alive and crying, in Derek’s bed.

“What did you do?” Derek can barely force out the words. He tries to reach out through his bond with Stiles but it’s barely there, more like his connection to any of the other pack members. He knows Stiles is sad, but it’s not overwhelming like it has been these last months. “What did you do?” Derek whispers. Derek’s heart is starting to skip beats and pound through his chest. 

Scott and Cora burst through the door. Cora skids to a halt and tries to make sense of all the fear and emotions in the space. Scott flies around the room looking for a threat but finding none. 

Derek is staring at Stiles, who has tears still streaming down his face but is looking at him with weary defiance. Derek rubs his chest but nothing is there, no pain, nothing. The worst part is that Derek still knows he loves Stiles, can feel that, but there’s no longer a mating connection and Derek feels like the room is spinning without that anchor. 

“What did you do, Stiles?” Derek yells it this time.

Stiles looks away from Derek then. Stiles’s voice is hard. “What I had to.”

Deaton looks pointedly at the other people in the room. “I think it’s time for the rest of us to go, but before we do.” He maneuvers Derek into sitting on the bed, impressive since Derek is a ball of something that is starting to feel like rage, and pulls a long sliver of the ceramic mug from Derek’s foot. “Now, I think we should leave. These two have some things to discuss.”

The door closes behind Deaton and Cora, but not before Scott pauses in the doorway and flashes red eyes at both of them. “Get your shit together.  _ Both _ of you.”

Stiles is staring out the window and Derek is breaking up inside. He wants to claw through his chest until he finds what’s missing. His hand shakes as he picks up Stiles’s hand where it’s laying next to Stiles’s leg. Derek scoots closer and cradles Stiles’s hand. 

“What did you do?” Derek’s voice shakes but he doesn’t hide it.

Stiles sucks in his bottom lip, something Derek has seen him do so many times. The familiarity of it makes him ache. “I did what I had to do, what I thought was best, given the circumstances.”

Derek is not sure what to ask, where to start. Stiles is being so vague and Derek can no longer gauge Stiles’s feelings because his bond with Stiles is gone. Derek gives a pained whine and tightens his grip on Stiles. “I can’t feel you anymore.”

“You can’t even say it, even now.” Stiles pulls his hand away and draws his knees to his chest. “I took it away and you still can’t say it. I removed our mating bond.”

“What?”

“I removed our mating bond. You no longer have to be tethered to me. You’re free to go find whatever the hell else you think you’re going to find.” Stiles looks out the window again.

Derek is raw and he doesn’t know where to begin. “Why would you think I’d want that?”

Stiles eyes fly back to Derek’s and they’re so filled with pain that Derek moves to reach back out to Stiles, but Stiles flinches from his touch. “What makes me think you would? You can’t even say the word mating bond and Stiles in the same sentence. The only time you don’t seem to find the idea completely abhorrent is when you're a damn wolf. The rest of the time, you treat me just like everyone else. I used to think it was because I was weak, that I wouldn’t be a good mate, so I worked hard. I learned to use my magic.” 

Tears are tracking down Stiles’s face and Derek is immobilized by the combination of those tears and the gut punch of Stiles’s words. “But you made it clear when I came back that you do think I’m valuable to the pack. That’s when I knew. It was just me you didn’t want and I can’t keep living like this, tied to you but knowing you’d never—” Stiles gathers some of that inner steel that Derek admires so much and looks him in the eyes, “I knew you’d never love me like I love you and I couldn't live that way anymore, strung out on crumbs of hope while being cut apart by reality. I wrote a spell and severed our bond. You’re no longer stuck with me.” A harsh laugh escapes his lips. “I’ll still be in the Pack, I’m not giving you that, but you won’t feel obligated towards me for any reason other than Pack.”

There are too many things Derek needs to say. Some of them are too late, he realizes, and now everything is broken, again. This is why he stayed away from Stiles for so long, because everything Derek loves he breaks or it breaks him. This time, it’s both and everything is in shambles and it doesn’t even matter that Stiles loves him because Derek’s broken that too. 

“I wanted you to have a choice.” Derek closes his eyes, unable to look at Stiles’s liquid brown eyes.

“A choice about what?” Stiles’s voice is even in the way that tells Derek he is forcing himself to be calm.

“I knew, sometime after the kanima, that my wolf wanted to choose you, but it was still some time after that before we both chose you. For our mate. Wolves mate for life and you were so young and everything around us was dangerous and unstable. I wanted you to have one choice that was normal, so I didn’t say anything to you. You deserved a chance to choose your own life, Stiles, to choose someone to love who’s not so broken. I break everything I touch.”

“But you never asked me what I wanted.” Stiles’s eyes and voice are an accusation.

Derek swallows. “I know. I did it all wrong.”

“You wouldn’t even acknowledge our bond, even after I figured it out. On. My. Own.”

“I’m sorry.” The pain of this conversation is consuming Derek whole. “I thought it would fade over time if I gave you space.”

“It didn’t, because even though you’re a colossal idiot, I still choose you back.”

Derek’s hand fists and he can feel his claws digging into his palms. “I know.”

“But you still wanted to make decisions for me, treat me like you didn’t have feelings for me and just to clarify since you have trouble using words—do you care about me?” Stiles’s face is carefully blank when he asks.

Derek knows he could lie. He could lie and, without the bond between them, Stiles would never know. He could lie and Stiles would be heartbroken, but Stiles would finally move on and find someone better. Derek shakes himself. Stiles deserves the truth from him, even if it’s too late.

“I’ve loved you for a very long time. That will never change, even if you dissolved our bond.”

Stiles leans back against the headboard of the bed and stares at the ceiling. “You know. We could have saved each other a lot of heartache if we'd just used our words.”

“And now it’s too late.” Derek feels gutted. He’s the one who forced Stiles to do something terrible.

Stiles lowers his head and stares at Derek, who knows Stiles is thinking even if he can’t feel him doing it anymore. 

“It’s not,” Stiles says.

“Not what?”

“Too late.”

Derek stills and stops breathing, intent on whatever Stiles is about to say as if the words will fix what has gone wrong today, yesterday, and the months before. “Is there a way to fix it?”

A vulnerable look crosses Stiles’s face and it cracks the wound in Derek’s chest open wide. Stiles must find some other resolve because his face shifts into something determined. “That depends. Do you love me?”

Derek’s hands are still fisted on his lap and his claws have bitten into the palms of his hands enough to draw blood. He was desperately trying not to mess this up any farther and to say the right thing. The right thing now is honesty, now matter how painful. “Yes. I do. I said that I have for a long time.”

“Do you want me as your mate?” Stiles’s gaze is wide and open and Derek can’t look away.

“I’d choose you again every time.”

Stiles’s expression breaks then and his smile is so bright Derek is blinded by it. “C’mere.” Derek scrambles over the comforter and kneels in front of Stiles. 

Stiles grabs Derek’s hand and presses the palm, marred by bloody half moons, against Stiles’s own sternum. Stiles places his own hand in the same spot on Derek’s chest. 

“For the record, and not just because the spell requires it, I love you too and would choose your sourwolf face over and over.” Stiles winks at him, then murmurs some words in Latin that Stiles says too fast for Derek to understand. Stiles’s eyes flare green and Derek’s eyes answer back a cool blue.

The muffled feeling in his chest opens up and the sharp pain of the tether connecting him to Stiles slams into him, before it slows and strengthens into something warm and full, tighter than it was before. Derek gathers Stiles up in his arms and buries his face in Stiles’s neck and breathes in the scent of magic and home and pack and love. Stiles wraps one arm around Derek’s waist and grabs a handful of Derek’s hair with the other. Derek can feel a loop of emotions and power cycling through them and, for the first time, he leans into it, falling headfirst into the connection with Stiles that he’s spent years skirting around the edges of. The moment Derek opens himself up to it, Stiles stills and a rush of emotions flow into him from Stiles, but the one that chokes him is hope, unfiltered and raw. It covers them, and Derek wants to weep with the time he may have wasted. He doesn’t know how to go forward, but he thinks that they can do anything they want, as long as they do it together.

Stiles shifts, and Derek loosens his hold on the other man enough that Stiles can pull back to look at his face. Stiles’s eyes are still green around the edges and Derek knows that his eyes are still blue. Stiles’s eyes sweep over Derek’s face and Derek can feel their movement like a physical touch. Stiles, who has always possessed more courage than self-preservation, closes the distance between them and places a soft kiss on Derek’s lips. Derek’s arms tighten around Stiles but neither of them deepen the kiss, not yet. It’s both a promise and a new beginning. 

“You built in a failsafe.” Derek places gentle kisses down Stiles’s neck, ending on the spot behind Stiles’s ear. Derek pauses and breathes in the pleasure of being here like this with Stiles.

Stiles presses into him. “What can I say? I’m an optimist. I couldn’t give up hope.”

“Thank you for that.” Derek pauses and presses into Stiles. “I’m sorry.”

“None of that. Now, I’m tired. Much as I’d love to make good on some fantasies I have that involve us both being very naked, I’d like to sleep first. Stay with me?” Stiles’s arms tighten as he snuggles in.

Derek smiles. “Always. I’m not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end. 
> 
> This is the first fic I've posted serially, so thanks for coming along for the ride. I've loved all the comments.


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